


Four Years Later

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 19:16:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years after the events of Mass Effect 3, Kaidan finds Shepard at the Citadel, brushing dust off of his sleeves and carefully stacking a box of fish food on the shelves above him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before the extended cut came out, so I made my own AU with the original canon!endings. For now, all you need to know is: 
> 
> 1) Shepard chose to destroy the reapers; thus resulting in the mass relays being heavily damaged.  
> 2) The Citadel was damaged heavily, but was repaired.  
> 3) Other synthetic life was not destroyed.  
> 4) Garrus and Liara were the last squadmates to see Shepard alive  
> 5) Kaidan and the rest of the crew were back in the Normandy, in the hopes of providing air support/evacuation if Shepard needed it.  
> 6) When the mass relays blew, there was a systems malfunction that threw the Normandy into a forced jump that subsequently stranded them in another system.

**I.**

It’s four years later when Alenko finds Shepard at the Citadel, brushing dust off of his sleeves and carefully stacking a box of fish food in the shelves above him. It’s a non-descript store, wedged in between some gift shop and a crappy café, and Kaidan wonders how he’s never seen it before. 

He’d arrived at the Citadel three months ago, wearing his SPECTRE status like a cloak. He hadn’t wanted to return, almost thought he couldn’t for a bit, but the council had pressed and he’d been left with little choice in the matter. 

The relays had taken over two years to rebuild after they’d gone offline, and there were still some parts of the galaxy that they couldn’t yet reach. Thankfully, Alenko and the rest of the surviving Normandy crew had crash-landed on a planet with a space-faring civilization, and they’d managed to limp back to the alliance shortly after the relay in that sector had been rebuilt. 

He’d spent the two years after that on call for the council, working himself to the bone and trying desperately to assist in the galaxy-wide “cleanup” that was left. Truth to tell, he’d been avoiding returning to the Citadel. There are memories there—hard and bright, and they leave the taste of metal and blood on his tongue.

 In the end, though, when the council tells him in no uncertain terms that he’s needed there, he goes back. 

He spends his time trying to smooth ruffled feathers with the human dignitaries and the rest of the council. As the only remaining human SPECTRE, they’d apparently felt that having him there would ease tensions on both sides. Humans have been going up in the eyes of the galaxy—after all, a simple man had succeeded where all the rest of the ‘evolved’ species had failed.

 It’s a nice break from the fighting, Kaidan knows, but deep down all he wants is to be out there again, in the thick of things. Killing isn’t something he’s ever relished, but with the surge of adrenaline pounding in his veins and his heart hammering out of his chest, he can almost bring himself to forget about Shepard.

 Shepard, who he’d managed to reconnect with, to fall in love with, in the span of a handful of weeks. Shepard, who’d been wrenched away just as quickly, to be lost to the darkness, to the Reapers, to his fate.

 Shepard, who is apparently working at a pet store in the Citadel, and looking none the worse for wear. 

Intellectually, Kaidan knows it can’t be him. It’s impossible, Shepard had died four years ago, and this man, this imposter wearing his face—it’s a striking resemblance at best, a tasteless cosmetic surgery at worst. 

Still, Kaidan thinks, heart thudding painfully in his chest, he has to know.

He steps forward, clenching his hands into fists and willing himself not to shake. “John?” he asks, when he’s close enough, and the other man looks up. For a brief moment, Kaidan looks into the eyes of the man he loves for the first time in four years, and everything else melts away. His eyes are a clear slate grey, not haunted by the weight of his responsibilities at all, and there’s a welcoming smile on his face.

 Then he clears his throat, and the mirage is broken. “Sorry, can I help you?” the other man asks, and there’s not a single trace of recognition in his voice.

 Kaidan’s breath hitches. “No,” he says. “You just… look like someone I knew, once.” 

“Oh,” the man replies, shrugging. He studies Kaidan for a bit, then sticks out a hand. “My name’s David. I help Kox with the shop. You want anything?” 

His large hand covers Kaidan’s, warm and firm, and for a minute Kaidan forgets to breathe. David’s hair is cut short—not as short as Shepard’s was, but his eyes are clear and his forehead unlined with worry. It’s a remarkable resemblance. 

“Uh…” Kaidan falters, belated realizing he’s still shaking David’s hand. “Wha-what do you sell here?” 

David grins slightly. “Fish, mostly,” he says. “We’ve got a two-for-one sale on those jelly things.” 

He makes as if to turn back to the boxes he’s stacking, and Kaidan reaches out, grips his forearm—and it may not be Shepard, but he sure as hell feels like him—and opens his mouth. David turns to him quizzically, and Kaidan’s mouth opens before he can stop himself.

 “I’ll take two.”

 

***

 

Later, when Kaidan’s holding two jellyfish in a self-sealing bag (with strict instructions not to forget to feed them at least once a day), and standing in the middle of his apartment, it occurs to him that he’s just made a very odd purchase.

 

He doesn’t have an aquarium, and as sparse and small as his living space is, he doesn’t really have the space for it. He allows himself a small smile as he remembers John’s old rig, a monstrous set that spanned the entire wall of his cabin. He’d had several different sorts of fish in it, and Kaidan had spent quite a few nights watching the brightly colored things swim around their habitat. 

It had been soothing, in a way. 

He frowns a bit as he grabs a couple of water pitchers from his cupboard, carefully tipping the jellyfish (one for each pitcher) into the containers. They’re small ones still, and bounce gently against the confines of the space, almost as if trying to get out.

 Kaidan sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “I know how you feel.”

 He watches them for a little longer, smiling a bit as he feels his mood lift. Maybe John was on to something about having an aquarium, he thinks. It’s not like he spends his money on anything else, anyway. 

Kaidan tells himself that he’s not going back there for Shepard, that he’s actually interested enough in the things to want to keep them alive, and as he measures a spoonful of flakes and drops it into the pitchers, he almost believes the lie.

 

  **II.**

 

Kaidan makes it two whole days without going back to the store, and isn’t until Jack asks (in her usual gentle speech) what the fuck his problem is, that he realizes his mind isn’t exactly on the job. One of his tasks at the Citadel involves checking up on Jack’s small class of special biotics every now and then, and she’s never really been one to mince words. 

“You look like you just got a fucking lobotomy, Alenko,” Jack says. “What gives?” 

Kaidan clears his throat, forcing himself to focus on the class full of expectant faces looking up at him. “Nothing,” he says. “Just got a lot on my mind. Everything looks great, Jack, keep up the great work.” 

Jack gives him a disbelieving look. “Are you kidding? You didn’t even *look* at the reports I busted my ass to write, here—“

 Kaidan beats a hasty retreat before she can throw the datapad at his head. “I already downloaded them,” he lies. “I’ll go over them tonight.”

 And then he’s gone, out the steel doors and making a beeline for the elevators. He tells himself that he’s not trying to skiv off work, that he’s just really not feeling up for Jack and her attitude, but when he punches in the market level, he knows exactly where he’s going.

 He’s back in front of David before he even notices that he’s a bit out of breath, and his hands shake a bit when he realizes he’s run all the way there. “This is… not healthy,” he mutters, but then David comes out to man the counter and he promptly forgets everything else.

 “I remember you,” David says, and smiles. “How are the jellies doing? Still alive, I hope.”

 “Kaidan,” says Kaidan, somewhat stupidly. “That’s my name. And uh, yes, they’re still alive.” He shifts nervously from one foot to another.

 “That’s great,” David replies. He pauses, looking at Kaidan expectantly. When the other man doesn’t say anything, he squints a bit. “Can I… help you with anything?”

 Kaidan colors a bit, realizing what an idiot he must look like. His mind races as he tries to come up with a plausible excuse. More fish food would be the obvious choice, except David had thrown in an extra bag of feed the first time he was there, so he had to know that he didn’t need any more of the stuff.

 “Uh…” he pauses, drawing out the word. Why had he really come here? Obviously not for the fish, since his mind was drawing a painful blank. He’d wanted to see David again, talk to him—hear him say things with his dead lover’s mouth.

 Kaidan cringes. Yeah. That doesn’t sound creepy at all.

 David smiles a bit. “Maybe you want a little more color in your aquarium?” he asks. “The jellyfish aren’t on sale anymore, but we just got some new koi in if you’re interested.”

 “Sure,” Kaidan replies, practically lunging at the lifeline. “I’ll take a couple of those. For… more color.”

 “Great,” David says, rolling up his sleeves.

 Kaidan swallows hard as he watches the muscles flex in his bare forearms, the tanned skin marred by several thin, white scars. David nets the koi easily and bags them, coming back to the counter to ring up Kaidan’s purchases. He throws in a bag of feed on the house, smiling easily when Kaidan blusters.

 “You really don’t have to,” he starts, but David waves him off.

 “Don’t worry, the stuff’s just made of recycled sewage, anyway.” He laughs at Kaidan’s expression, waving him off. “Relax, Kaidan, I’m only joking.”

 “Oh… right. I knew that,” Kaidan says lamely. He hands over the credits and takes the fish, eying the tiny things warily. “They look… great.” In truth, they were actually quite small compared to the large, brightly-colored ones Shepard had once owned. Scrawny, even.

 “Don’t worry, they’ll grow up eventually,” David says. “Just give it time.”

 His hand brushes against Kaidan’s when he hands over the feed, and Kaidan almost drops the bag in surprise. Blue tendrils course and fade gently along his fingertips, and he looks at David in shock. “You’re a biotic?” he asks, heart in his throat. Shepard had been an L3—there was no way this could be a coincidence... could it?

 “I—I’m not—“ David begins, a frown creasing his brow. He looks so much like John in that moment that Kaidan steps forward, fish be damned, but a crash in the backroom resounds through the open door before he can even say a word.

 A distressed voice calls out to David, startling them both. “The bloodworms, human! The bloodworms are escaping!!”

 “Sorry, that’s Kox,” David says apologetically. “I have to go.”

 He reaches out and takes Kaidan’s free hand, turning it palm up and dropping the bag into it. “See you around.”

 Kaidan stands there for a good five minutes after he disappears into the back, desperately trying to process what’s just happened. When Kox comes out, the Salarian looks more than a little disgruntled.

 “Help you with anything?” he asks, and Kaidan numbly shakes his head.

 “No,” he says, turning to go. “I got what I came for.”

 It’s the precise opposite of the truth, but Kaidan squares his shoulders and heads away. He’s going to get to the bottom of this mystery, and he knows exactly where to start looking for answers.

  

**III.**

 

 Days pass before Kaidan gets a solid lead on the Turian, and it takes him more than a few well-placed bribes to get his exact whereabouts. He finds him, of all places, on Rannoch—a beautiful world by any standard, not as savaged as Palaven during the Reaper invasion.

 He’s standing at the southern docking bay, a modest strip of metal with a station built around it, when he’s greeted by an enthusiastic shout.

 It’s Tali, of course, but how she knows how he’s come to be here is another question. Kaidan grins in spite of himself, taking in the young Quarian. Years later, she still looks very much the same—the suit is still exactly as it was, though her hood has been replaced with somewhat brighter colors.

 “SPECTRE Alenko,” Tali says. “When your name came through processing, I knew I had to come see you. How have you been?”

 Kaidan rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve been keeping busy,” he says, shrugging slightly. “There’s always something to be done at the Citadel, and god knows keeping an eye on Jack’s never easy…”

 Tali smiles, her lips curving behind her mask. “I have no doubt that you bring honor to the position,” she replies. “Though I wonder—are you here on SPECTRE business, or for personal reasons?”

 They walk past security, Tali nodding as they wave them through.

 “I’m actually here to see Garrus,” Kaidan replies. They come to a stop in front of a large set of double doors, presumably leading into the rest of the station. “I got intel that he was last seen here, but that was months ago. Figured I’d drop by, see what I could dig up.”

 “Garrus disappeared after what happened on Earth, Kaidan,” the Quarian says tonelessly. “You know that as well as I do.”

 Kaidan nods. “It was tough on him and Liara, I know,” he says. “Everyone wanted answers, and only they were in a position to give them. But asking Liara… well. You know that’s not an option.”

 They pass through to the station, Kaidan pausing to take in the cavernous ceiling and the intricate designs wrought into the steel walls. It’s an amazing feat, given that they’ve only been rebuilding for a handful of years.

 “I remember that you two had something going on towards the end,” Kaidan says, turning to face the Quarian. “If you know where he is, I could really use the help, Tali.”

 She sighs, gracefully taking a seat on a nearby bench. “Garrus is… a difficult person to know,” she says. “I cared for him very much. After we managed to get off the planet, he was the first thing I attempted to look for.”

 Tali clenches her fingers on her lap. “But after Earth, he was different,” she continues. “I found him, in the ruins of Palaven after two years, and I could not reach him. We were all grieving for Shepard, but Garrus… I think Garrus blamed himself, mostly. I could not persuade him to come with me, so I left him and returned here.”

 She takes a breath, forcing a smile. Kaidan can barely make it out through the wisps within her mask. “I have not seen him since,” she says. “I’m sorry, Kaidan.”

 Kaidan looks down, fighting down the disappointment rising in his throat. “After what happened to Shepard, I was lost, too,” he says, looking away. “He meant a lot to all of us, but when I found out he’d died… it took me to a place that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get out of. And now, I just… I can’t tell you why, but I need to know exactly what happened four years ago.”

 “For my own peace of mind, if nothing else,” Kaidan finishes, running a hand through his hair.

 They’re silent for a moment, watching the bustle of the station around them. Finally, Kaidan meets her eyes, forcing a smile.

 “I guess SPECTRE intel isn’t as good as it used to be,” he says. “It’s all right, I appreciate you coming down to see me, Tali. For old time’s sake.”

 Tali nods. “For what it’s worth, I have the same questions,” she says. “But there are no answers to be had. Given the state of the galaxy after the Reapers were destroyed, I’m surprised news of Shepard’s death even reached us. I promise you, though, if Garrus is to be found on Rannoch, you will be the first to know.”

 “Thanks, Tali,” Kaidan says. His smile is genuine this time, and he slaps his thighs, rising. “So… how about showing an old friend the sights before seeing him off?”

 “Of course,” Tali replies. “There’s a wonderful view of the vistas a short distance from here…”

 

 

**IV.**

 

By the time Kaidan returns to the Citadel, all of his fish have died.

 He looks morosely at the small bodies, floating belly up in the four pitchers he has lined up on his kitchen counter.

 “Sorry, guys,” he says, sighing. “Guess Jack really meant it when she told me to ‘fuck off’ after I asked her to feed you.”

 He taps at the plexiglass, surprised to see that one of the jellyfish has apparently survived. It bops weakly against the pitcher, and Kaidan hurriedly spoons a bit of food into the pitcher. He gets rid of the rest of them, flushing them down the toilet and hoping they don’t clog anything important.

 Kaidan watches the lone survivor for a bit, then gets up.

 Finding Garrus may have been a bust for now, but there’s always the direct approach, and now he’s got the perfect excuse.

 

\---

 

It’s the Salarian at the counter today, and he looks Kaidan up and down before asking him what he wants.

 “Uh, I was hoping to get your assistant’s opinion on something,” Kaidan says. When Kox appears unimpressed, he hurriedly continues with: “I’m having trouble keeping them alive. My fish, I mean. I’m a regular… Sort of.” He winces, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to appear nonchalant. He fails utterly, of course.

 “A regular?” Kox repeats, frowning. “All you humans look alike to me.”

 He turns on his heel and disappears into the backroom, shouting for David. “Handle him,” Kox says, jabbing a finger at Kaidan. “He says he killed his fish.”

 “I didn’t say that!” Kaidan protests, straightening as David puts down a rather large box and walks up to him.

 “Kaidan, right?” he asks, smiling easily. “Don’t mind Kox—he hates everyone, even his customers.”

 “Uh, right,” Kaidan replies. “I was away for a bit, on business. The person I asked to come by to feed the fish… forgot. And now they’re dead. Well, mostly. One of the jellyfish survived.”

 David chuckles, his eyes crinkling a bit at the corners. Kaidan’s stomach does an odd flip. “Dying. Yeah, they do that when they don’t get fed,” he says. “If you’re interested, we have some pretty sweet aquarium gear that cleans and dispenses food into the tank automatically. It’s on sale at twenty thousand credits.”

 Kaidan’s horror must’ve shown on his face, because David laughs softly at his expression. “It’s a bit much, I know,” he says. “I don’t even know why we stock it—the only people who can afford it are the big politician types, and god knows they never come to this part of the Citadel.”

 He leans forward conspiratorially, winking at Kaidan. “Tell you what—if you ever need to go off again, let me know and I’ll come by to feed your fish. I’d feel bad if I sold you more and they died again.”

 “Uh, yeah,” Kaidan says. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thank you…”

 “Great,” David says, smiling. “You want anything? More fish, maybe?”

 Kaidan nods ruefully. “And a small aquarium,” he says. “I think my jellyfish deserves a new home. It’s probably tired of living in a pitcher.”

 The look on David’s face is almost priceless, and after he lectures Kaidan on the merits of preserving life, he promptly sells him two bags worth of gear and three more jellyfish. It’s so much like Shepard that Kaidan’s heart *aches* like it had four years ago, when all the wounds were fresh and raw.

 “Even jellyfish need friends,” David says somberly, and Kaidan swallows hard.

 “Well, uh, thanks,” he says. “I appreciate it, David. The next time I have to go away, I’ll definitely take you up on your offer.” He smiles, David smiles, and they stand there smiling at each other while Kaidan tries to work up the nerve to say something. *Anything*.

 He opens his mouth to say ‘Maybe you can help me set up my aquarium?’ or even ‘Want to hang out sometime?’, but the words die on his lips. Dear god, he hasn’t been this pathetic since he was a teenager.

 He does an awkward sort of shuffle as he backs away, trying to wave but failing because he’s holding too much stuff. Face flaming, he does an abrupt about-face and rigidly walks off.

 “Kaidan!” The SPECTRE turns around so quickly he almost gets whiplash, and he looks expectantly at the other man.

 “Listen, we’ve got a shipment of Asari animals coming in tomorrow, so the shop’s going to be closed in the morning while we restock,” David says. At Kaidan’s confused look, he smiles a bit. “I usually get the afternoon off when that happens, and I…”

 He takes a breath, then grins. “I was wondering if you’d be around tomorrow? Maybe we could bump into each other over at the café?”

 They’re interrupted by a loud cough, and they watch in silent horror as one of the human waiters coughs into a drink that he’s about to serve to a hulking Krogan. “Maybe not at this café,” David says, and Kaidan laughs.

 “Yeah, I’d… I’d like that,” he says. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow, then? At 1600?”

 David grins and nods, and he looks like he’s about to say something else but Kox comes out again, blinking owlishly. “Are you quite finished?” he asks. “I must admit that human mating rituals are beyond me, but I believe that now you’ve secured your next meeting, you can let my assistant get back to his job?”

 Now it’s David’s turn to color awkwardly, and he waves quickly before walking back to the counter.

 Kaidan shrugs at the Salarian and walks off, suddenly feeling lighter than he has in years. He finds himself grinning stupidly all the way home, and all throughout supper, and only stops when he realizes that he’s got an appointment with Jack at the exact same time tomorrow.

 “Damn it,” he mutters, and his jellyfish bob in commiseration.

  

**V.**

“Kaidan,” Jack says, when Alenko walks into her office the following day. “The fuck you doing here so early?”

 “You killed my fish,” Kaidan says without preamble. “I got back yesterday and they were all dead.”

 Jack smirks. “Yeah? Thought I made it pretty clear that I didn’t give a damn about your fish,” she says. “Or you.”

 Kaidan takes a seat in front of her desk, raising a brow at the piles of datapads strewn haphazardly across it. There’s some sort of green mold growing under one of them, and he shudders a bit and looks away.

 “Something came up,” Kaidan says. “And I can’t make it later. So I thought we’d get your reports out of the way now.”

 Jack puts her feet up on the table, decidedly unimpressed. “Tough shit,” she says. “I haven’t finished them yet. Anyway, what’s so important that you’re canceling on the oh-so-serious business of checking up on me? That doesn’t sound much like you, boyscout.”

 “It’s SPECTRE-related,” Kaidan lies, after a brief pause. “Classified, and also none of your business.”

 “And I’ll be damned if you’re not the worst liar I’ve ever seen,” Jack says, smirking. “But go ahead—keep your secrets. Like I said, the reports aren’t done—I usually write them ten minutes before you come in to collect.”

 She laughs at the look on Kaidan’s face, shaking her head. “Don’t pretend that you even read them,” she says. “They’re all bureaucratic bullshit, anyway.”

 “Actually, I do read them,” Kaidan says. “Well, most of them, anyway. And my superiors do, too. You’re doing important work here, Jack. You know that as well as I do.”

 Jack smiles thinly. “Maybe,” she says. “But either way, they’re not done. They’ll be ready at 1600, so come back for them then or don’t—I don’t really care.”

 “Fine.” Kaidan sighs. He rises, a frown marring his brow as he tries to figure out the ramifications of filing a late report. The amount of help they’d given during the war notwithstanding, Biotics are still pretty closely monitored by the Alliance. They require his reports on Jack’s progress promptly after each scheduled visit, probably because they half-expect her to go insane and murder him or her students (or both).

 There’s no way around it—he’s going to have to cancel on David. He makes his way back to the SPECTRE offices, glancing at the clock. He’d gone to Jack first today, and he still had plenty of time before their scheduled meeting. He could probably drop by the lower wards a little earlier, see if David was amenable to rescheduling.

 The receptionist, a stern Asari, looks pointedly at the chrono as he walks through the double doors. Kaidan’s technically five minutes late for the scheduled briefing, but as it’s been nothing but pointless bureaucratic tasks for the past few weeks, he can’t bring himself to mind too much.

 He slips in towards the back just as Joren, a Turian SPECTRE, calls out his name. “Alenko,” he says. “Good of you to join us.”

 He waves half-heartedly. “I apologize,” he says. “I was checking up on Jack’s biotics earlier and lost track of time.”

 Joren’s eyes glitter darkly. “While your attachment to Nought’s school is understandable, you would do well to prioritize SPECTRE briefings,” he says. “You’ve been assigned to C-Sec this week. Report to Commander Bailey for your assignment.”

 Kaidan raises a brow. “Roger that, sir,” he replies. Bailey’s mellowed some since the war—he’s remarried and has a child on the way—and there’s hardly any action on his beat nowadays. Kaidan can’t imagine why he’d need SPECTRE assistance.

 Joren calls a few more names off the list and throws out a handful of assignments—three baby sitting gigs and a milk run—and they break up. It’s been a handful of years since Shepard’s days as a SPECTRE, and while Kaidan may miss the excitement of more dangerous missions, he’s not stupid enough to complain about peace.

 Kaidan nods at Chenowith, one of the handful of other humans here, and heads over to the presidium. Bailey’s one of the few C-Sec officers who survived the war, and if anyone deserves a cushy beat, it’s him.

 Kaidan gets off the lift, taking a moment to stare at the polished floors and the reflective pillars, the lake shimmering behind the glass walls. The presidium’s always been beautiful, but since the rebuild it’s gotten to the point of ridiculous opulence.

 “Is the commander in?” he asks the receptionist. She’s a pretty human, with freckles across her nose and her hair done up in a tight braid.

 “SPECTRE Alenko,” she says, equal tones bored and professional. “He’s been expecting you.”

 Kaidan walks in, blinking a bit as he takes in the relative sparseness of the commander’s office. Some things never change, he supposes, and Bailey stands stiffly and offers a hand.

 “Alenko,” he says. “You’re looking fit.”

 Kaidan attempts to return his handshake with the same firmness, surreptitiously wiggling his fingers a bit as he takes a seat. “So,” he says. “How can I help you, commander?”

 “I’ve never been one to mince words, Alenko,” Bailey says, steepling his fingers across his chest. “So I’ll just come right out and say it: what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

 Kaidan frowns. “I can’t say that I appreciate your tone, commander,” he begins, but Bailey cuts him off, rising from his chair.

 “Nothing happens in the Citadel without my knowing about it, Alenko,” Bailey grinds out. “You check up on Jack, I’m watching. You sneeze, I’m there with a tissue. Do you honestly think that Shepard—or some asshole who looks enough like him—would be able to dock here without my noticing?”

 He stalks towards Kaidan, jabbing his index finger at the other man’s chest. “So let me repeat my question: What. The. Hell. Do. You. Think. You’re. Doing?”

 Kaidan pushes his hand away, rising as well. “I don’t know who you think you are,” he says hotly. “But my personal business is my own. And as for ‘Shepard’ or ‘David’ or whoever the hell he is—I have no idea! My guess is as good as yours—I was just as shocked as you were to see him!”

 “Bullshit,” Bailey snarls. “You expect me to believe that this… /poser/… suddenly turns up at the lower wards, completely out of the blue with no record of his ever landing at the Citadel—and you turn up barely a week later—and I’m supposed to believe this is a coincidence?”

 “I don’t know what sick shit you’ve gotten yourself into,” Bailey continues, mouth twisting. “But Shepard’s a god damned hero. He doesn’t deserve… /that/.”

 By the time he finishes his tirade, Kaidan’s gone positively ashen. He reaches out to grip the back of his chair, knuckles white with the strain of keeping his temper.

 “We’ve known each other a long time, Bailey,” he says, his voice dangerously soft. “Which is why I’m not putting you through a bulkhead right now. But if you /ever/ speak to me that way again—god help me, you’ll know just how high an L2 can spike.”

 He runs a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “John Shepard meant everything to me,” he says. “And more than that, he was a great man, and I would /never/ sully his memory by putting his face on some random whore.”

 “And if you bothered to do your research,” Kaidan continues. “You’d know that I was already here for three months before I even met David at the lower wards. So regardless of whether or not we arrived here a week apart, I haven’t had contact with him until recently.”

 Bailey’s quiet for a long moment, and the two men glare at each other before he finally looks away. “Maybe I was out of line,” he says finally. “But I’ve been keeping an eye on this character for a while now. I was chalking it up to either a hell of a resemblance or insane hero worship, but then you showed up, and…”

 He cleared his throat. “I guess I jumped the gun a bit,” he says. “My informer spotted you chatting him up and I traced your arrival down to around the time he started working for the Salarian. I just put two and two together.”

 Kaidan nods tiredly. “I guess I can see that,” he says. “But I hope you realize that I’m not so desperate for a lay that I’d put my dead lover’s face on someone else. Running into him was purely a coincidence—I don’t even know his last name, for god’s sake.”

 Bailey smiles thinly. “Anderson,” he says. “He doesn’t use it much, but I had one of my guys hack into Kox’s books. He lists him as a temporary employee by the name of David Anderson.”

 Kaidan has to make a conscious effort to shut his mouth at that. “Either that’s in incredibly poor taste…”

 “Or there’s more to this guy than meets the eye,” Bailey finishes. He drops down into his chair wearily, waving at Kaidan to take his seat again.

 Kaidan frowns thoughtfully. “What I don’t understand is how no one else has recognized him,” he says. “Shepard has the single most recognizable face in the galaxy, for god’s sake!”

 Bailey snorts. “I have it on good authority that most other species think that all humans look alike,” he says. “And as for the humans… Well, you have to admit, Shepard was larger than life whenever you saw him in the vids. And as for the handful who met him in person… I doubt they saw past the uniform and the buzz cut.”

 He rubs his chin. “This David guy may have John Shepard’s face, but he has none of his presence,” he says. “Reporters called it his ‘air of command’, but I think it was mostly his bull-headed determination in believing he was right all the time.”

 Kaidan smiles crookedly. “He usually was, though,” he points out, and Bailey nods.

 “Smug bastard,” he says. “This guy’s got none of that, though. The way he carries himself… it’s like he doesn’t have a care in the world. That, plus he keeps mostly to the back.”

 “Hn.” Kaidan frowns, feeling a headache beginning behind his eyes and the back of his head. “So, what now, commander? I’m still assigned to you for the week.”

 Bailey shakes his head. “David’s your assignment,” he says. “Find out who the hell he is, and find out what his angle is. No one goes to the trouble of getting a likeness that close without having some agenda, and it’s up to you to find out what that is.”

 Kaidan winces. “My personal relationship with Shepard aside, wouldn’t it be better to assign someone who wasn’t part of his old crew to do this?” he asks. “I’m not exactly anonymous myself, and if someone sees us together and connects the dots…”

 He shakes his head. “Shepard’s got a lot of fans, but he also had a lot of enemies,” he says. “If this guy really has no idea who John is… /was/… wouldn’t I be needlessly putting him in danger?”

 Bailey frowns. “Then I suppose you’ll have to double as a babysitter as well,” he says. “I want this mystery unraveled, Alenko. The only thing I dislike more than unknown variables are the Reapers, and he’s been here long enough. I want answers.”

 “So do I,” Kaidan replies. His temples are throbbing, and he rises abruptly, his chair scraping backwards. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.”

 “Good luck, SPECTRE,” Bailey says, and Kaidan gives him a terse nod before he walks out.

 Kaidan’s head isn’t in the best place right now, and his thoughts are warring between acute rage at potentially uncovering some sick plot, and the brief, wild hope that John’s somehow still alive.

 He doesn’t dare to hope, can’t imagine what to think, but he sure as hell knows what he’s going to do about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**VI.**

Kaidan arrives at the lower wards just as Kox finishes signing for several large crates. He rolls his eyes when he sees Kaidan.

“Come back later, human,” he says. “We’ve got to transfer the eggs to their incubators before they hatch, or they’re worthless.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” Kaidan says, trying to dart past him as he attempts to block his way. The Salarian frowns, pivoting as he grabs a crate and shoves it abruptly into the SPECTRE’s arms.

“Make yourself useful, at least,” he says. “Bring that to him in the back room.”

“I will,” Kaidan promises, hefting the crate and shouldering the locking mechanism. It’s the first time he’s been in the back room, and he squints a bit as his eyes adjust to the dim light. “David?”

“Kaidan? Is that you?” David’s head appears from behind a stack of tall, metal lockers, and his face lights up when he sees him. “You’re a little early for our date…”

“I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” Kaidan says. “Your boss made me take this in or he wouldn’t let me see you.”

David chuckles softly, coming over to take the crate from him and carefully carrying it behind the lockers. There’s a large metal table here, and when Kaidan gets closer he realizes that it’s cold to the touch.

“The surface is cryo-treated,” David explains. “We need to keep the eggs in stasis because they imprint the minute they’re hatched.”

He smiles mischievously. “Are you interested in adopting Asari felines?” He asks, donning gloves and working quickly and carefully, his brow furrowing as he transfers each egg to a large, silver incubator.

Kaidan laughs in spite of himself. “Feline? You mean like a cat?” he asks. “I think I’ll stick to fish… I have enough trouble keeping those alive.”

David manages a shrug whilst handling one of the eggs. “A cat? Close enough, I guess,” he says. “They look a bit like a cross between a Siamese cat and a penguin. They’re cute as hell, but pretty vicious predators. They’re fiercely loyal to their masters, though, and some Asari keep them to protect their children.”

Kaidan makes an interested noise and watches as he continues to work, staring at the other man.

This is the closest he’s ever been to David, and he uses it to catalog every feature that he can. He’d been by John’s side during the latter days, and by then he’d acquired a good deal of scars over the years. Kaidan liked to think that he had known all of them, but scars healed and Shepard was not above cosmetic surgery.

Chakwas had shown Kaidan vids of how John had looked after Cerberus was through with him, and he’d been unable to suppress the chill that had gone down his spine.

“I can feel you breathing down my neck there, Kaidan,” David jokes, and Kaidan clears his throat.

“Sorry,” he says. “Those eggs are… pretty fascinating.”

“They really are,” David replies cheerfully. “In fact, I was—aw, crap!” He pulls back from the table as the egg in his hand shakes violently, tiny cracks appearing over the surface of it. He cradles the egg in his large hands, turning around and heading to a cramped table in the far side of the room.

“Get the lamp,” he says, and Kaidan reacts automatically, reaching out to switch on the light. Immediately, the table is bathed in a soft, yellow glow, and David gently sets down the shaking egg. A tiny beak breaks through it almost as soon as he does so, and Kaidan watches in fascination as the tiny, furred thing breaks out of the shell.

“Well, what do you know,” he says, voice hushed. “It does sort of look like a cat and a penguin.”

David snorts softly, and he reaches out to help the tiny creature poke out. “A purple cat and a penguin, maybe, with maybe a bit of octopus thrown in,” he says. Unable to help himself, Kaidan reaches out to help brush off some shell from the creature’s head.

“No, wait—“ David starts, but the tiny thing opens its eyes and it’s too late.

It mewls softly, reaching out to him with its tiny claws. “…I just did something wrong, didn’t I?” Kaidan sighs, and David grimaces.

“Yeah… They imprint when they hatch, remember?” he reminds him. “I was going to keep it, but it won’t accept any other master, now.”

“Wonderful,” Kaidan says, and the little thing mewls again. Resignedly, he holds out his finger, and it latches on with tiny, needle sharp teeth. “And it bites, too.”

David laughs. “Don’t worry,” he says. “They don’t draw blood. Well, at least not intentionally. Asari are considerably tougher-skinned than humans. But once it discovers your limits, it won’t intentionally ever harm you. For all intents and purposes, you’ve got a companion for life now.”

He withdraws a bit of cloth from one of his pockets and wraps the feline in it, then hands it to Kaidan. “I’ve got to finish stocking the rest of the eggs,” he says. “But what did you want to talk to me about?”

Kaidan trails after him, holding his little bundle in cupped hands. He feels very clumsy. “Nothing,” he says, swallowing. “I just… I had some free time and I wanted to drop by. Tell you how much I was looking forward to seeing you later.”

David grins. “That’s… unexpected,” he says. “Sort of creepy, but nice.”

He steers Kaidan firmly back to the door and, entirely on impulse, leans over and brushes his lips against his. “See you later,” he says easily, and pushes him through the door.

Kaidan stands there and stares for a bit, blinking at the shiny metal door. Then the creature in his hand mewls a bit, and he shakes himself. He turns around, finding Kox staring at him in a decidedly unimpressed manner.

The Salarian chucks a thumb at the counter. “It’s five thousand for the egg and another two thousand for the litter box, the feed, and the chew toys.”

 

**VII.**

Kaidan names the feline ‘Ashes’ and he and David spend the afternoon in a dingy cafe with a couple of glasses of Batarian shard wine. It isn’t his favourite thing on the Citadel, but it’s either that or synth, and he’s not really in the mood to start climbing the walls in the middle of the day.

“How is it?” David asks, slumping back in his chair with an easy grace.

It’s a relaxed moment, and Kaidan squints a bit as he thinks about how this couldn’t possibly Shepard. Couldn’t be further, really, as John had once filled a chair not unlike this one, his back so straight Kaidan could have stuck a ruler down his shirt and no one would’ve been the wiser. The John he’d known, loved, had been military to the core. He couldn’t have relaxed like this if he’d wanted to.

“It’s… all right.” Kaidan hides a wince as he takes a sip; it starts sweet but burns all the way down. “Brings back a few memories, that’s all.”

“For me, too. Which is funny, since I can’t remember when the last time I had this was,” David says, shaking his head ruefully. “Getting old, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Kaidan replies, apropos of nothing. There’s a memory here from a lifetime and a half ago, and it superimposes itself in his mind’s eye and makes bile rise in the back of his throat from the sheer /want/ that fills him.

He wants to say: “I wish John were here.” But instead he forces a smile and asks David about how he came to be on the Citadel.

“Somehow you don’t strike me as the type to work behind a desk,” Kaidan says, trying for a light, casual tone. First date stuff, and it’s been so long that he’s almost forgotten how. “You seem built for the military… I’m surprised the Alliance hasn’t tried to recruit you.”

David laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess I’m just not into following orders,” he says. “I grew up on one of the border colonies. Pretty much the ass-end of nowhere, but it’s a pretty decent life if you don’t mind the hard work.”

He looks into his glass, swirling the red liquid around a bit. “My dad was a trader, and he’d go off for weeks at a time, stocking supplies for the colony and bringing whatever we managed to mine from the planet,” he says. “I remember this one time, I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, he brought home this weird hamster for me. Said it stowed away in the hold and ate through a couple of ration piles. He had a hell of a time catching it, and when he finally did, he didn’t have the heart to toss it out of an airlock.”

David grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It was the first pet I ever had, and I realized that I had quite a knack for taking care of them,” he says. “Things got a bit rough during the war, but my family managed to get off Mindoir in time. After that, I decided to head off on my own for a bit, see what the Citadel could… Kaidan? Are you all right?!”

Kaidan forces himself to unclench his fist from his now-splintered glass, wincing as his blood mixes with the blood and drips down the table. “Jesus,” he mutters, face coloring. “It’s fine, David—don’t worry about it.”

But David’s already on his feet and producing one of his ever-present cloths from one his pockets, carefully winding it around Kaidan’s palm. “We should get you to a hospital,” he says. “Stay here while I go settle the bill.”

Kaidan shakes his head as he walks briskly away, trying to process what he’s just heard. The colony background he can chalk up to coincidence—a lot of humans grew up in places like that. The call of space and conquering the final frontier is like a siren song to many, after all, and he can tell himself it doesn’t mean anything.

But Mindoir… Even Kaidan can’t ignore *that*. He wills himself to get to his feet when David returns, cradling his injured hand to his chest. “Thanks,” he murmurs, as the other man puts a hand on the small of his back.

They walk out into the street together, and Kaidan purposefully takes them down a route that he knows is rarely populated. They’re not in a particularly nice part of the Citadel, and the few beings loitering about aren’t the type to interfere.

He fakes a stumble and when David turns to help him, he ducks beneath his arm and /holds/ him. The thrum of his biotics is steady, reassuring, and Kaidan watches as David sputters in confusion in mid-air.

“What’s going on?” he demands, and the SPECTRE can’t help but be impressed. The impostor may have nothing of Shepard’s presence, but he certainly had his balls.

“The face I could chalk up to coincidence,” Kaidan replies tonelessly. “And if I tried really hard, maybe I could even swallow the colonist background. But Mindoir?”

Kaidan circles around him, scanning him with his omni-tool. It lists his identity as ‘Anderson, David’, in glowing letters, with ‘civilian’ beneath it. Something in Kaidan’s gut clenches. “I don’t know what your game is,” he says. “But enough is enough.”

“I’m not armed, if that’s what you’re trying to determine,” David breaks in, craning his neck in an effort to catch his eye. “And if this is some sort of kinky foreplay, I can tell you that I’m not very impressed.”

Kaidan scowls, coming to a stop in front of him once more. “What’s your angle, Anderson?” he demands. “Credits? Fame? John Shepard was a good man, and if this is some sick sort of joke, I swear to god, I’m going to put you through a god damned wall.”

David frowns, the muscles in his neck straining as he struggles against Kaidan’s biotic hold. “Look, I like you, Kaidan. I really do,” he says. “I mean, I’ve been a pretty good sport so far, considering that this is by far the weirdest date I’ve ever been on. But I swear to god, if you don’t let me go RIGHT NOW, I am going to report you to C-Sec and have them lock you up!”

The threat hangs in all its ludicrous glory for all of three seconds before Kaidan drops him. David falls on his ass with a startled whuff, and Kaidan almost feels bad before David gets up and punches him once, /hard/, in the stomach.

He doubles over, wheezing, as David stands over him, his hands clenched into fists. Kaidan tries to say ‘nice punch!’ or ‘gosh, you even hit like Shepard!’, but all that comes out is a pained groan.

“We’re done here,” David says, and before Kaidan can process *that* doozy, he’s walked off in a brisk huff, head held high and nose in the air.

Kaidan rubs his stomach. “Hell of a first date,” he sighs.

 

**VIII.**

Kaidan gets his report from Jack a couple of hours late, but she lets him off easy by telling him he looks like garbage and sending him on his way. He skips reporting to Bailey, choosing instead to go back to his apartment to brood.

Ashes is fast asleep in the middle of his pillow when he walks into his bedroom, and after feeding the fish in his (relatively) new aquarium, he flips on his terminal.

In the years they’d known each other, John Shepard hadn’t been the most open of individuals. Oh, he cared about the backgrounds of his crew well enough—patiently extracting secrets and stories from them whether they liked it or not—but he said precious little about himself. So Kaidan had taken it upon himself-- during the last days, when Shepard was drowsy with sleep and pliant in his arms-- to ask him how he came to be the man he was.

John’s voice was halting, soft, but Kaidan liked to think that he’d told him the truth. The truth about growing up on Mindoir, about watching his friends and family get butchered like cattle when the Batarians came. He’d talked about lying in the rubble, praying to die, for hours that stretched on like days. By the time the Alliance had found him, he had been delirious, hovering at the brink of death, and he’d clung to the only shred of humanity he had left.

Kaidan had gripped his wrist, warm and reassuring, and thought about how he would die for this man a thousand times over.

The console glows in the dim light, and Kaidan keys in his Alliance access codes and pulls up ‘Shepard, John (DECEASED, K.I.A.)’. He scrolls down, past the accolades and awards, the mission lists and the classified links, until finally he reaches his pre-Service background. And there it is, the events of Mindoir in the dispassionate bullet points that only an impassive data grunt can manage.

It confirms everything John said and more, detailing that the Batarians had killed almost everyone and then implanted the rest with horrific cranial implants. John had escaped both fates through sheer luck—he’d been judged too injured to take along with them, and his injuries had left him so damaged that they didn’t see the need to waste any more bullets.

Kaidan shakes his head. It feels like with every answer he finds, three more questions spring up in its place. He grabs the nearest thing on the table—one of Ashes’ squeaky toys—and hurls it across the room. It bounces harmlessly off the wall but ricochets into the aquarium, killing one of his new fish instantly.

“Son of a bitch,” says Kaidan.

 

**IX.**

Kaidan is at the pet store as soon as the next cycle hits, and he’s leaning against the counter when Kox comes out to man it.

“Go away, human,” the Salarian says instantly. “You’re banned from the shop.”

Kaidan holds up his hands. “I just want to talk to him,” he says, but Kox shakes his head and tries to push him off the counter.

“You make him inefficient,” he argues. “If he’s inefficient, I lose money. Bad for business. So you have to go. Now.”

Kaidan lets him ‘escort’ him off his store space, sighing a little as he leans against a far wall. The Salarian gives him a look as he does so, but Kaidan shrugs. “Not your property,” he points out. “And I can stand wherever I like.”

Kox shakes his head. “Romance is bad for business,” he says, and disappears into the back.

It isn’t long before David comes out, an annoyed look on his face as he walks briskly over to Kaidan. “I already called C-Sec,” he says. “So you’d better go if you don’t want any trouble.”

“All I want to do is talk to you,” Kaidan says. “Please, if you’ll just—“

“Save it,” David says flatly. “I’d say you’ve got about thirty seconds before they get here, so I’d clear out if I were you.”

He turns on his heel and walks back to the counter, folding his arms across his chest. Kaidan stays where he is, and true enough, a C-Sec officer drops by a few seconds later. He talks to David for a bit, who points him out, and Kaidan feels a flash of relief when he realizes that he knows him.

“SPECTRE Alenko,” says Nikos, nodding. Kaidan’s crossed paths with the Turian once before, and he’d thought of him as a fair individual. “Are you aware that that individual has filed a complaint against you?”

“I am,” says Kaidan. “SPECTRE investigation going on. I hope you understand.”

Nikos nods slowly. “I suspected as much,” he says. “Since you haven’t hauled him into custody for questioning, I’m assuming matters are of a delicate nature?”

“You assume right,” Kaidan replies gravely. “I appreciate your discretion in the matter.”

“Noted, SPECTRE.” Nikos shuts off his omni-tool and walks back to the lifts, David watching him leave with a surprised frown.

Kaidan catches his eye and shrugs, then settles back to wait.

***

It’s precisely four hours and twelve minutes later when David finally caves, throwing off his apron and stalking over to where Kaidan’s standing.

“Don’t you have a job?” he demands. “You’ve been standing here for hours.”

“Of course I do,” Kaidan says. “But I wanted to apologize to you, and I wasn’t going to leave until you let me.”

David’s scowl gets even deeper at that, and he shakes his head. “Fine,” he says. “Go ahead.”

“I was out of line yesterday,” Kaidan says immediately. “And I apologize. I jumped to the wrong conclusion about you, and I reacted without thinking. You didn’t deserve it, and I… I really am sorry, David. I don’t know what else to say.”

David’s frown softens only slightly, but at least he doesn’t look like he wants to punch him so much, anymore. Kaidan’ll take what he can get.

“And what was that crazy part about Shepard?” David asks. “You kind of just went nuts on me, Alenko.”

“I can’t be the first person to tell you that you look like John Shepard,” says Kaidan. “And that plus the whole Mindoir thing—it’s a hell of a coincidence, David.”

David runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what you want me to say, Kaidan,” he says. “You’re not the first guy who mentioned the resemblance, but you’re definitely the first person who tried to kill me over it. And as for Mindoir… lots of people come from there. After the Alliance rebuilt it, it was one of the best colonies around.”

Kaidan nods, trying to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat. Disappointment hits him like a live thing, killing the small hope that he didn’t even know he really had. “I’m sorry, David,” he repeats. “I served with John Shepard during the war and the idea that somebody would try to… I don’t know, usurp his identity somehow… I felt like I owed it to him to put a stop to it.”

“Yeah,” David says finally, sighing. “Yeah, I get that. When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem as crazy. I haven’t been at the Citadel for very long, and I guess I didn’t know how strongly people here would react to my resemblance to him. Everyone knew me on Mindoir, and my buddies thought it was a hoot, but nobody really cared.”

Kaidan looks away. “Shepard meant a lot to the people here,” he says. “It’s not fair to you, but he was a symbol of hope for a lot of marines. Give it time.”

David gives him a measuring glance, and Kaidan meets his gaze steadily. “I can live with that,” he says, finally. He shifts slightly, glancing over at the counter where Kox is entertaining an annoyed-looking Asari and her daughter.

“I should let you get back to work,” says Kaidan, and David nods.

He takes a half-step towards the shop and stops, squaring his shoulders as he turns back to Kaidan. “I’m probably going to regret this,” he says, smiling crookedly. “But how about we start over?”

He sticks out a hand. “Hey, I’m David Anderson,” he says. “I work over at Kox’s shop, and I look a little bit like a dead war hero.”

Kaidan stares at his hand for a half a beat before taking it, giving it a firm shake. “Kaidan Alenko,” he says. “And I just killed another one of my fish…”

 

**X.**

Kaidan closes Anderson’s case at the end of the week. Bailey gives him only the most skeptical of looks as he does so, but Kaidan fields further inquiries by stating that he cannot discern any ill intent on David’s part.

“Either he’s the luckiest bastard on the planet, or the worst off,” Bailey says, shaking his head. “In my experience, there’s no such things as coincidences, Alenko. Especially not ones this big.”

“It’s on my head, commander,” Kaidan says. “And I’ll keep an eye on him in case anything comes up.”

Bailey grunts in acknowledgment, waving him out. “See that you do,” he says.

After that, life continues on in much the same way. Kaidan picks up a couple of missions from the SPECTRE office, checks up on Jack and her students for the Alliance, and catches up on his paperwork.

Ashes grows bigger, and soon it’s old enough to play and get into the aquarium. Kaidan has a hell of a time keeping it away from the koi, and he loses one while he’s sleeping and another when he’s out with David.

It leaves the jellyfish well enough alone, though, so when Kaidan discovers that it’s eaten its way through the majority of his aquarium, he doesn’t buy any more fish. David’s brow furrows when he checks Kaidan’s aquarium the next time he’s over, and he raises a brow in Ashes’ direction.

It purrs sweetly, and Kaidan shrugs. “Didn’t matter where I put the damned thing, Ashes always found a way in,” he says. “I think it can live with the jellies, though.”

David sighs. “I guess she’s a bit too young to train yet,” he says. “Asari can usually teach them to keep their paws off other pets.”

He sits back on Kaidan’s couch and takes a swig of the beer that Kaidan hands him. “I haven’t seen you around much,” he says after a while. “Is everything okay?”

Kaidan nods, suddenly finding the label on his beer intensely interesting. “Yeah, I just wanted to give you some breathing room,” he says. “We’ve been seeing each other a lot lately, and…”

He looks at David squarely. “I just don’t want to screw this up.”

The other man smiles a little at that, putting his beer down. “You won’t, Kaidan,” he says, and suddenly the space between them isn’t so much space as it is a distinct lack thereof. Kaidan’s not complaining, though, since he gets his hands under David’s shirt and his tongue in his mouth and his living room suddenly gets a lot hotter.

Ashes beats a hasty retreat when Kaidan accidentally kicks a pillow at it, and he barely has time to register this before David gets a hand on his cock and his brain suddenly blanks out. Things move pretty quickly after that, and by the time Kaidan realizes they’ve moved into his bedroom, there’s a trail of ripped clothing in their wake and his nails are digging into David’s back.

And /Christ/ if it hasn’t been way too long since the last time he’s done this, with the stretch and the utterly delicious fucking burn of it, one of his legs hooked around David’s ankle as the bastard moves so terribly gently. “Come on,” Kaidan groans, and it kills him that he thinks it, but he’ll be damned if it isn’t better than it used to be with John—they’ve got all the time in the world now, and it’s too much and not enough, all at the same time.

David obliges him, sucking on the pulse point at his neck, moving faster and harder, but still so god damned careful with him that Kaidan thinks he might just die. His cock’s trapped between them as they slide together, slick with sweat and David kisses him, sweet and full of promise.

“You’re fucking amazing,” David breathes, and Kaidan’s name is on his tongue when he takes him in hand, pumping in time to his thrusts, and Kaidan comes so fucking hard he sees stars.

It isn’t long before David follows, shuddering as Kaidan mouths the hollow of his neck, hands fisting in the sheets. Kaidan manages a grin when he rolls off, running a hand through his sweaty hair.

“…well,” David says. “That was intense.”

“I’d say that’s a pretty big understatement,” Kaidan replies, laughing wryly. “I guess this means I haven’t screwed up yet, then?”

There’s a faint crash somewhere in the vicinity of the living room, and by the time Kaidan’s pulled on his boxers and half tripped out into it, he discovers that yes, Asari felines do indeed eat jellyfish.

He hears David sigh behind him. “Well, I suppose having one pet isn’t so bad,” he says, wrapping an arm around Kaidan and surveying the mess of shattered glass and half-eaten jellyfish corpses. “Ashes looks like it’s going to be quite the handful.”

Kaidan grins. “Things that are worth keeping usually are.”


	3. Chapter 3

**XI.**

Life goes on, and for a handful of months, Kaidan’s actually happy.

He and David are going on six months now and Kaidan’s on the verge of asking him to move in with him. Never mind that he’s already there five nights out of a week and Kaidan’s closet is sixty percent David’s stuff—Kaidan’s an old fashioned sort of guy, and he likes the idea of having to ask.

He’s on leave today and he spends the lazy afternoon in bed, Ashes on his stomach and David puttering around in the living room. “Do you want to have dinner at the Presidium later?” Kaidan calls out in his general direction, carefully running his fingers through his pet’s tentacle hair. “If we leave early enough, maybe we can catch the new Blasto film afterwards.”

David makes a noise of assent, brow furrowing as he carefully inserts the last rivet in his new hamster cage. He’d been discreetly moving his things into Kaidan’s apartment over the last few weeks, and he hopes that the other man won’t mind having his precious hamster with them, too. Ashes has been behaving itself recently, after all, and David’s starting to really miss his own pets. They’re bound to be feeling neglected since he spends most of his time at Kaidan’s place.

Kaidan comes up behind him, shirtless and yawning with Ashes perched carefully across his shoulders. He’s so god damned perfect that David almost forgets to breathe.

“What’s his name?” Kaidan asks, taking a knee next to him. “He’s really cute.”

“Norman,” David replies, blinking. He grins, taking the hamster carefully out and presenting him to both feline and human. “See, Ashes? Norman’s a friend, okay? Not dinner.”

Kaidan laughs, shaking his head ruefully. “Come on, it hasn’t murdered anything lately,” he protests. “I think all the time we’ve been putting into training it has finally paid off.”

“I hope so,” David says. He puts Norman back in the cage and latches it securely, then curls his fingers around Kaidan’s waist and tugs him close. “You going to get dressed now, SPECTRE? Or are you planning on going to the Presidium in your boxers?”

Kaidan laughs. “Don’t tempt me,” he says. “If I had something other than half a ration bar in the cupboard, I wouldn’t have suggested going out at all.”

David smiles wryly. Okay, so maybe he’s not *that* perfect, but he’s damned close. “Well, you better get dressed then,” he says. “Before I end up throwing you on the bed and having my dastardly way with you.”

“Oh, is that so?” Kaidan’s all smiles now, the bastard. He puts Ashes on the floor and hooks his fingers in the waistband of David’s pants, tugging him towards the bedroom. “I’m pretty sure we can catch the late show…”

David shakes his head but allows himself to be led. There are worse ways to spend an evening, and if they don’t make it the Blasto movie… well. He’s certainly not complaining.

***

They end up missing both dinner *and* the Blasto movie, and eventually share the half-eaten ration bar whilst scattering crumbs all over Kaidan’s bed.

“This tastes like cardboard,” David complains. “See, this is why I never joined the Alliance—the food is garbage.”

Kaidan laughs. “It’s not so bad,” he says. “You actually get used to it, after a while.”

He rolls over and slips his arm around David’s mid-section, burying his nose in the nape of his neck. “Anyway, you shouldn’t complain—colony food isn’t that much better,” he says. “I’ve seen the carrots grown from hydropods. They look like shriveled fingers.”

David laughs, fingers tightening around his. “That’s true,” he says. “I guess neither of us are really in any position to be picky.”

The comm beeps before Kaidan can think of a reply to that, and he gives David’s hip an apologetic squeeze as he gets up. “Duty calls,” he says, grimacing.

He eyes the alert on his omni tool; it’s flashing red and blinking angrily. Priority, then. Kaidan picks it up and puts it on, calling up the message. He has to read it twice before what it says actually penetrates, and then he reads it three more times before it hits home.

“Kaidan?” David’s voice sounds very small suddenly, as if he’s hearing it from a great distance. “Kaidan, is everything okay?”

It’s almost as if his world has narrowed to five words, the letters flaring in the dim light. “I—I have to go,” Kaidan manages, turning to David with wide eyes. “SPECTRE business. I just—I have to go.”

He stumbles into the bathroom, away from David’s concerned looks, trying to calm his pounding heart. He pulls on the first thing he gets his hands on—standard issue Alliance threads—and is out the door as quickly as his legs can carry him.

He sees the message playing over and over in his mind’s eye, superimposed over David’s worried gaze.

*Shepard alive. Report to HQ.*

Almost five years later, and his hands are still shaking like it was yesterday.

Shepard.

/Jesus./

 

**XII.**

Nikos and Bailey are both at the SPECTRE HQ by the time Kaidan arrives, and they’re so deep in conversation that they barely even notice him before he’s practically on top of them.

“Alenko,” Nikos says, finally glancing up. “Excellent timing.”

“We’re just waiting for Jack,” Bailey says. “We thought it best if both of you were present for this.”

But Kaidan shakes his head, practically vibrating in place. “You can’t leave me hanging like this, commander,” he says. “That message you sent-- is John alive?”

“He’s alive,” Bailey says, but there’s a frown marring his brown and his voice sounds anything but pleased. “He was found by some human faction and stitched together—Cerberus technology, apparently—and he wants back into the Citadel.”

“Back…?” Kaidan mouths the word before his brain catches up with the rest of him, and he reaches out and grabs Bailey’s forearm in a vise-like grip. “What docking bay?”

“Hold your horses, Kaidan,” says Bailey. “We need to discuss this—“

But Kaidan’s biotics are already flaring a brilliant blue, and Nikos takes a hasty step back. “Twelve,” he says quickly, before Bailey can respond. “He’s waiting at the security checkpoint at bay twelve.”

“Kaidan, wait—“ Bailey protests, but the SPECTRE’s already released him and is out the door. “God damn it!”

***

Time grinds to a halt when Kaidan sees _him_ again, standing tall and strong in the middle of bay twelve’s security processing station. He’s decked out in standard spacer grays, jaw darkened with his perpetual five o’clock shadow and looking for all the world like he’s just stepped off the Normandy.

Kaidan’s heart clenches in his chest and he finds it hard to breathe all of a sudden, but he’s a marine first, damn it, and he’s never backed down from anything. His legs carry him forward, right up until he’s standing with the officers crowding around him, so close that he can see the blue in his eyes and the thin, strange scar along his hairline.

Kaidan opens his mouth to say ‘Shepard’, but what comes out instead is: “John.” And no one else calls the commander that, not really, and their eyes lock and Kaidan’s tumbling down the rabbit hole.

“Kaidan,” Shepard says, and the relief in his voice is noticeable enough to cut through the crowd, through the clamor of all the officers vying for his attention. He twists around, trying to get a bit of breathing room. “Give us a second, guys?”

Kaidan nods at the officer in charge—C-Sec to the bone but even he can respect Kaidan’s SPECTRE status—and takes Shepard’s elbow. “I can’t let you into the Citadel, yet,” Kaidan says. “But we should talk before Bailey gets here.”

He gets the only private room at the station cleared, and his hand shakes only slightly as he locks the door. Pads are stacked haphazardly around the room and the desk is a god awful mess, but Kaidan doesn’t even see it. He’s only got eyes for John.

“Kaidan,” Shepard begins, but the other man holds up a hand.

“Jesus, John,” he says. “Just… just give me a minute to digest this, okay?”

Shepard nods, and Kaidan lets him take his hand, his palm calloused and rough. John squeezes his hand reassuringly, and he slides his grip up his wrist and to his forearm.

“It’s okay, Kaidan,” Shepard says. “I’m here. I’m back.”

He tugs gently and Kaidan goes, pulled into a firm embrace. One of Shepard’s hands goes around the nape of his neck and the other around his waist, and he’s holding him just /so/. “Jesus,” Kaidan breathes, and his voice cracks just a bit. “It’s really you, isn’t it?”  


“It’s me,” Shepard says. He pulls back just far enough to look Kaidan in the eye. “I’m glad you came.”

Kaidan smiles wryly. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” he says, then shakes his head. He’s so close that he can see the faint crow’s feet around John’s eyes. “You look like you haven’t aged a day.”

“I probably haven’t,” John replies. “Or not by much, anyway. I’m no scientist but I’m pretty sure I was worse off than I was when Miranda’s team put me back together.”

He grimaces. “The people who helped me, they’d been working on me for the better part of four years before I regained consciousness. It’s only been a week since I’ve been able to eat anything that wasn’t through a god damned straw.”

Kaidan frowns. “Are you all right now?” he asks. “I mean, you look fine, but…?”

Shepard waves a hand. “Yeah, I am,” he says. “There’s a bit more tech in me now, and it helped me get back on my feet faster. They wanted to keep me for further observation, but I wanted to get back as soon as I could.”

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck, looking at Kaidan almost shyly. “I wanted to see you,” he admits. “And I didn’t think a comm would be appropriate.”

“I’m glad you’re all right, John,” Kaidan says honestly. “There are… there are things I need to say to you, but they can wait. I’m just, I’m glad you’re alive.”

They embrace again, Kaidan’s heart pounding in his chest like a mad thing, and John’s mouth ends up pressed somewhere on the underside of his jaw. And Kaidan freezes because of /course/ Shepard is going to continue where they left off-- four years haven’t passed for him, and even if they had, John is really just that single-minded.

He’s the type of guy who’d stay your friend for years, turning everyone else down on the off chance that that friendship might grow into something more. Their handful of weeks together at the end of it all, bittersweet in its briefness, is something that Kaidan still aches for.

…isn’t it?

David’s crooked grin flashes in Kaidan’s mind’s eye, and he feels a stab of guilt run through him. He’s saved from pushing John away by a sharp rap on the door, however, and they disengage quickly.

Kaidan opens the door to admit Bailey, Nikos, and Jack—the latter pushing past him and abruptly slugging Shepard. Her fist hits him hard across the jaw and John rolls with it, wincing just a bit.

“You son of a bitch,” Jack says, over and over, wrapping her arms around the large man. Her eyes are suspiciously shiny, but Kaidan knows she’ll deck him if he ever mentions it. “I knew you’d be back.”

“Jack,” Shepard says awkwardly, trying to pat her on the back. “Jack, you’re crushing my chest. Ease up.”

She pulls back, drawing her gauntleted arm viciously across her eyes. “I knew you’d make it out of there,” she says. “But you sure took your god damned time.”

John grimaces, one of his shoulders rising in a strange half-shrug. “It’s a long story,” he says, eying Bailey and Nikos. “And if you’d give me chance to explain it, I’d be happy to do so.”

“Some answers would be nice,” Bailey says, pausing. He drums his fingers against the desk, giving the commander an assessing glance.

“Sorry, Shepard,” he says. “But I’m sure you understand that you pose a security risk. Until we get to the bottom of this, I’ll have to keep you in custody.”

“I understand,” John says, just as Jack lets out an indignant squawk.

“What the hell are you on, Bailey?” she asks, hands on her hips. “It’s fucking Shepard, for god’s sake! You’re really going to throw the guy who saved the entire galaxy in jail? On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that his identity is as of yet uncertain,” Nikos speaks up finally. “I apologize, Professor Nought, but until we run the commander through the gauntlet, we can’t clear him.”

“Alenko, are you seriously telling me that you’re buying this shit?” Jack shouts, turning to Kaidan. “It’s fucking Shepard, for god’s sake!!”

“Simmer down, Jack,” Kaidan says, glancing at Bailey’s thunderous expression. “It’s Alliance procedure to clear someone who was KIA, and John’s well aware of this.”

He runs a hand through his hair, looking at Shepard apologetically. “Let me get in touch with Alliance command,” he says. “See if I can pull a few strings, speed up the process some. In the meantime, Bailey—Shepard’s not going back on active duty any time soon, so I’m sure we can put him up somewhere, for now. Somewhere that isn’t the inside of a jail cell.”

Bailey frowns. “That’s hardly regulation, Alenko,” he says, but waves a hand when Jack takes a step forward. “But I’ll allow it, provided that he doesn’t leave the premises and is under constant guard.”

“That’s good enough for me, Owen,” Shepard says earnestly, and he puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Jack—procedure is procedure.”

He meets Kaidan’s gaze, smiling faintly. “So are you going to clap me in irons, now?”

He’s only joking, but the SPECTRE winces anyway. “There’s no need,” he says. “Let’s head back to the SPECTRE HQ and we’ll get you set up.”

Bailey leads them out, clearing Shepard past a gaggle of his men. Jack is still protesting loudly as they head back to HQ, and Kaidan feels a migraine begin to stab painfully at the back of his head.

He has a feeling that it’s going to be the first of many.

 

**XIII.**

Kaidan doesn’t get back to his place until hours later, and by then David’s out like a light, Ashes purring softly at the crook of his elbow. He strips off his clothes and tosses them somewhere in the direction of the bathroom.

He’d gotten Shepard set up in a nice apartment over at the Presidium, a couple of C-Sec guys posted outside his door just like Bailey requested. Kaidan’s not sure how he feels about that, but he knows why Bailey’s on edge—it’s almost too much at this point, and after all this time, David’s still a question mark to the man.

“Ev’rything okay..?” David’s voice is slurred and heavy with sleep, and Kaidan drops a kiss on his shoulder.

“Go back to sleep,” he says. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”

David chuckles softly. “That’s in… what? Two hours?” he mumbles. He strokes a hand fondly across Kaidan’s cheek before his eyes drift shut again.

“Two hours,” repeats Kaidan, eyes shutting briefly as he recalls the last thing Shepard had said to him. John had grabbed his arm as he was walking out, pulling him in close to whisper three words into his ear: _“This isn’t Horizon.”_

Horizon, where Kaidan had accused him of being a Cerberus puppet, a traitor to the alliance, and then turned his back on him.

The message is not lost on him—John is counting on Kaidan to trust him this time. And Kaidan _wants_ to, he really does, but… what he wants to do and what he should do are not one and the same. He can almost see Bailey’s accusing gaze when he shuts his eyes, trying in vain to sleep. His thoughts are running through his head a mile a minute.

Ashes pads over and nuzzles his chest, almost as if sensing his worry.

“It’s okay,” he whispers to it, running his fingers through its sleek tentacles. “I’m okay.”

He closes his eyes in the dark room, listening to David breathe.

If he says it enough, he can almost believe it.

***

True to form, Bailey runs Shepard through every test he can think of.

He goes through the standard Alliance gauntlet first, then gets Nikos to throw in some SPECTRE-level scans when those come up positive. They run him through every biometric test they have, starting from the standard omni-tool scans all the way up to DNA testing his blood and hair.

The shrinks come after this, and Shepard goes through psych test after psych test, each response a perfect match with his previous records.

Kaidan’s present for all of it, the whole parade. He waits with his arms folded and standing silently in the corner for most of the tests, watches behind a glass window for others. He doesn’t reply when Jack cusses him out for not putting a stop to it, and she finally storms off in a huff when he refuses to engage her.

He has to be sure.

On the fifth day of tests, Bailey calls for him. They meet in his office at the Presidium, Nikos right behind him with a data pad of the latest results. He throws it on the pile on Bailey’s desk.

“Checks out,” he announces, and Bailey’s brow furrows.

“God damn it,” he swears. “He’s passed every single physical we’ve thrown at him and he’s an exact match for all the psych tests, too.”

Kaidan picks up the pad, skimming over the results. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he says, shaking his head. “I think it’s time we accepted the fact that John Shepard is, in fact, back from the dead for a second time.”

“It does seem unlikely,” Nikos says. “But even I cannot argue with the facts, Commander.”

Bailey lets loose with a series of colorful swear words that would make even Jack blush, and he scrapes his chair back and stalks to his window. “I owe Shepard a lot,” he says, smacking a rough palm against the sill. “We all do. So if this is really him…”

He takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “I’ll be god damned,” he says. “Son of a bitch must be part cat.”

Kaidan smiles wryly. “Could be,” he says. “I should tell him he’s free to go.”

Bailey nods. “You do that,” he says. “And while you’re at it, you should probably assign another security detail to him.”

Kaidan halts in mid-step, confused. “I thought you believed him?”

“It’s not for him,” Bailey says. “It’s for the reporters. Commander Shepard, back from the dead— _again_. Can you imagine the shit storm this is going to cause in the press?”

 

**XIV.**

_//He’s floating in a pool of viscous liquid, weightless. He’s dreaming of blue eyes, so pale that they’re almost the color of steel. There is a memory hovering at the edge of his consciousness—of stars and sky and pain._

_Pain? His mind caresses the concept, but he feels nothing now, and dismisses it. Now there is merely the ebb of fluid, warmer than a womb._  

_He sleeps.//_

 

There are few things that Kaidan can say he well and truly hates, but reporters are definitely one of them. He and Shepard are heading to the Presidium conclave for an official press conference, but a few reporters had caught wind of John’s location and promptly ambush them on the way out of his apartment. After that, it’s a series of rapid-fire questions from the gaggle of media as they make their way down the pathway, and Kaidan’s suddenly regretting turning down Bailey’s offer of an escort.

He sticks close to John as they walk, glaring at one of the reporters when she gets to close. Shepard’s an old hand at fielding their invasive questions, but Kaidan’s got little practice at it and he loses his temper when one of them recognizes him.

“SPECTRE Alenko, have you rekindled your personal relationship with the commander? What does your current partner think about this?”

It’s a hell of a way to break it to Shepard, and the fact that Kaidan knows it’s partly his fault for waiting so long to tell him just pisses him off even more. There’s a flash of something rather disquieting in Shepard’s eyes, but it’s gone before Kaidan even fully registers that it was there.

“My personal life is *none* of—“ Kaidan begins hotly, but Shepard is already stepping forward.

“My relationship with SPECTRE Alenko is entirely professional,” he says smoothly. “As I’ve been officially dead for the past four years, I’ve been fully prepared for the eventuality that the galaxy may have moved on without me.”

He gives the reporter a faint half-smile and she grins back, moving her attention back to him. Kaidan takes the opportunity to fade into the background, and Shepard continues forward with the pesky reporters in tow.

They reach the conclave soon after, and after what seems like an hour of speechifying by the current council, Shepard takes the stage. Kaidan tunes out most of his story as it’s a stripped down version of the events they’ve had him repeat on record, over and over, for the past week.

Mostly he watches the crowd, looking at their rapt expressions, hanging on John’s every word. He shakes his head. Shepard may have been a symbol before, but he’s a fucking legend now.

Kaidan still hasn’t had the chance to talk to him alone, not really, but he knows he hasn’t really been trying that hard. If he’s honest with himself, he can admit that it’s because it’s going to bring them out of limbo and straight into awkward.

He runs a hand through his hair, picking Jack out from the crowd. She’s also on the outskirts of it all, and she gives him a cool nod before turning back to watching John.

Kaidan steps out of the chamber, heading down the wide steps that lead outside. A few reporters give him a curious glance as he goes past them, but he ignores them.

He needs some air.

***

It’s only been a couple of weeks since he was here, but somehow it feels like a lifetime ago. Kox gives him a measuring glance when he turns up at the counter, wordlessly holding up a bag of goodies for Ashes.

Kaidan rolls his eyes but pays him anyway, then steps through to the back room. David’s hunched over some bit of machinery, elbow-deep in wires and coolant. He starts a bit when Kaidan leans over him, handsome face breaking into that crooked grin of his.

“Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here? I thought you had that big press thing with Shepard.”

“Skipped out,” Kaidan says. He nudges David a bit with his hip, and the other man moves over on the narrow bench to give him room. It’s a tight fit, but David’s warm and pressed against him from thigh to shoulder and Kaidan’s not complaining. “I needed to talk to you.”

David raises a brow. “Well, that doesn’t sound good,” he says. He powers down his omni tool and shifts a bit until he’s looking Kaidan in the eye. “Lay it on me, then.”

“So, you know that I served aboard the Normandy,” Kaidan begins, fidgeting slightly. “At the same time as Shepard. I was part of his crew for most of his major missions during the war, and we worked together pretty closely. I had—have—a great deal of respect for the man.”

“Sure,” says David. “You made that pretty clear when you tried to string me up just for looking like him.”

Kaidan winces. “Yeah, sorry about that,” he says, and David waves him off. “Anyway, I just… I think you should know that the commander and I were… pretty close. Back on the Normandy, I mean.”

David gives him a measuring glance, then calls up his omni-tool again. “You mean *this* close?” he asks, and pops open a news byte of a very unflattering photo of Kaidan and Shepard at Huerta Memorial. ‘COMMANDER SHEPARD WEEPS BY DYING LOVER’S BEDSIDE’ reads the headline. Shepard’s not crying, but he definitely looks upset, and Kaidan’s seen better days.

“That isn’t what it looks like,” Kaidan protests. “We weren’t—not back then, anyway. I mean, it wasn’t until I got out of the hospital that we… were together.”

He exhales, running a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” he says. “The whole situation kind of threw me for a loop.”

David shrugs. “It’s all right,” he says. “I did some digging after you freaked out on me months ago. It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out that there was some truth to all the tabloid gossip, you know. Your reaction wasn’t particularly normal.”

He takes Kaidan’s hand, squeezing. “But we’re all a little loco when it comes to people we care about,” he says. “If that’s your biggest flaw, then… I can live with that.”

And he grins that stupid crooked grin of his, and something in Kaidan’s chest tightens and does a little flip. “I love you,” he blurts out, the first time he’s said it to him, and David smiles even wider.

“Yeah,” he says, and hauls him in for a kiss.

They’re pleasantly occupied until Kox walks in and throws Kaidan out, and he has to buy another bag of toys for Ashes to stop him from firing a sheepish David.

Still, Kaidan muses, as he walks home laden with parcels. It was totally worth it.

 

**XV.**

John Shepard gets reinstated with two months later, getting his rank bumped up to Admiral due to having given up his life (twice) for the good of the galaxy.

Kaidan is there for the ceremony, and the event itself is filled with great pomp and circumstance. He’s in full dress blues, standing at attention as Shepard gets his new rank courtesy of Admiral Hackett. He’s proud of John, happy to be there for his friend, and though he’s not insensitive enough to ignore the lingering sadness in Shepard’s eyes, he knows he’s doing the right thing.

There’s thunderous applause when Hackett finally pins on his medal, and Kaidan joins the rest of the crowd as they empty out into the hall. Reporters are all over the place, their cams floating above their heads.

Joker comes up to him during the reception, looking almost respectable in his crisp Alliance uniform. “Major,” he says, shaking his hand. “It’s good to see you.”

Kaidan grins, genuinely pleased to see the other man. “You too, Joker,” he says. “Glad you managed to get that leave you were gunning for.”

Joker laughs. “Yeah, I had to pull some strings with the Captain,” he says. “But she said yes in the end.”

“It helped that she, too, wished to see Shepard,” EDI says, coming up behind them. She’s wearing formal Alliance blues as well, but Kaidan swears that she looks better than both him and Joker put together. “It is good to see you again, Major Alenko.”

“And you, EDI,” he says, nodding. “How’re you holding up aboard the Valiant? I’ve seen her specs—she’s a smart little ship.”

“Indeed,” EDI replies promptly. “My crew complement is small, but they are competent. While there was an initial resistance to having an AI as captain, they have thus far behaved quite admirably on all of our missions.”

Kaidan nods. “I’m glad they’ve come around,” he says. “After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Joker had to pretend you were his personal mobility droid just to get you into the Citadel. I’d say that the Alliance has come a long way...”

“True,” EDI says. “Though it must be noted that my ship is significantly smaller and less capable than the Normandy was. Were humans truly accepting of AI, they would put me in charge of a larger ship. I am, after all, significantly more qualified than most organics.”

“…and that’s exactly the type of thing that you *shouldn’t* be saying out loud,” Joker finishes, snaking an arm around her hip. “Come along, dear. Why don’t we go do something that won’t aggravate the brass?”

He leads her off to the bar, and Kaidan shakes his head ruefully. EDI may be one of the most advanced artificial intelligences in the galaxy, but she hasn’t mastered the art of politics just yet. He adjusts the collar of his uniform, stepping out into the balcony to get some air.

Old ghosts, he thinks. Coming back to haunt him.

“Kaidan?”

The SPECTRE turns at the sound of his name, raising an eyebrow when he sees John loitering behind one of the pillars. “Aren’t you supposed to be making the rounds?” he asks, grinning. “There are over a dozen reporters dying to get an exclusive in there.”

Shepard shrugs. “It’s getting to be a bit much,” he admits, leaning a hip against the column. “I feel like I haven’t gotten a break since I got back.”

“I can imagine,” Kaidan says. “Every time I turn on the holos, I keep seeing your face. You must be exhausted from all the interviews.”

Shepard shrugs. “Could be worse,” he says, diplomatic to a fault, and chuckles at the expression on the SPECTRE’s face. “But not by much.”

Kaidan smirks, leaning back on the railing and whistling softly at the sight. The Citadel sprawls neatly below them, all graceful spires and transparent walkways. It’s a hell of a view.

“Do you ever wish that you hadn’t come back?” he asks curiously, glancing at Shepard.

“Maybe,” replies Shepard quietly. He walks over to stand beside the other man, not quite close enough to touch. “I miss you, Kaidan.”

“John…” Kaidan begins, pausing. He tears his gaze away from Shepard’s earnest expression, swallowing hard. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Shepard reaches out, taking Kaidan’s hand. “Four years is too long to wait for a dead man,” he says. “And I know it isn’t fair, but… I can’t help but wish things were different between us.”

Kaidan looks down, where Shepard’s fingers have intertwined with his own. His palms begin to sweat.

“I still love you,” Shepard continues, his free hand coming up to cup Kaidan’s jaw. “If there’s any chance that we can pick up where we left off… please tell me.”

He leans in, so close that Kaidan can feel his breath on his lips. It’s the point of no return now, Kaidan knows this, and even though they’ve already talked about David, he knows that John’s been waiting patiently, just like he had all those years ago.

It’s a gauntlet thrown down just as much as it is a kiss, and god help him, Kaidan makes his choice.

“I’m sorry,” he says, turning his head away at the last instant, John’s lips brushing his cheek. He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the world of hurt swimming in Shepard’s gaze. “I can’t, John.”

“So am I.”

There’s a rush of air followed by dead silence, and by the time Kaidan opens his eyes again, Shepard’s gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**XVI.**

 

_//He can hear someone through the glass. It’s a man’s voice, familiar even through the distortions in the water. There’s a sharp pain in his chest, suddenly, blossoming with unexpected heat. He can hear the dull sound of a booming klaxon, people shouting._

  _He can’t open his eyes, can’t slow the pounding of his heart, but he hears the voice, and he takes comfort from it._  

_“Soon,” it whispers. //_

 

Kaidan pulls some strings and gets himself reassigned back to Jack and her biotics, and he turns in one last pad to Bailey before he goes.

“Anything new to report?” Bailey asks, raising a brow.

“Same old,” Kaidan replies. “I brought him to see half a dozen reporters, then to the council, then to diplomat Wesson. He asked to be dropped off at the Presidium commons afterwards, so I left him there and came here.”

“Hm,” Bailey grunts, tossing the data pad into a drawer. “All right, then. I suppose I can’t persuade you to keep on him?”

Kaidan winces. It’s been awkward as hell with John during the past few days, and being his bodyguard-slash-chauffeur isn’t really helping him put a little distance between them. “There’s something else I need to pursue,” he lies. “SPECTRE business.”

“Sure,” snorts Bailey. “As if there’s any mission bigger than keeping the galactic war hero over there happy. Anyway, it’s your call, Alenko—I just thought you’d want to be assigned to him given your past service history.”

“Right,” says Kaidan. “I do, but… duty calls elsewhere. I’m sure you understand.”

Bailey nods, already calling up the list for the next SPECTREs in line for the job. The Shepard assignment is little more than a glorified babysitting gig, but the list is several pages long—not many people would pass up the chance to work with a living legend.

“Go on, get out of here, Alenko,” Bailey says, glancing up at him. “I got shit to do.”

“So long, commander,” Kaidan replies. The doors hiss shut as he steps outside, Bailey making a strange half-wave, half-shooing motion as he goes.

It’s the last time Kaidan sees him alive, and when he gets the call thirteen hours later, he gets his special SPECTRE assignment after all.

 

**XVII.**

SPECTRE Commander Joren is already there when Kaidan arrives, arms crossed over his chest and sternly directing a couple of rookies. They’re scanning the room for traces of DNA, feverishly running over surfaces with their omni-tools.

Kaidan nods at Joren, bringing his own tool up to bear. “What have we got so far?” he asks. This isn’t his shift, not by a long shot, but Joren knows he and Bailey go way back. Kaidan’s grateful he called him first.

“C-Sec is giving us first crack at the scene,” Joren replies briskly, mandibles flaring. “I intercepted the call when the cleaning staff discovered his body, and I told the officers in charge to give me first dibs. Bailey’s a friend; I want to make sure we get the bastard who did this.”

He nods at Driix, a young Salarian engineer taking scans above Bailey’s body. “Give Alenko some room, SPECTRE,” he says.

“Yessir.” Driix backs off, and Kaidan moves forward to take his place.

Bailey’s slouched forward, slumped over his desk and lying in a pool of blood. There’s a pinprick on the back of his neck-- as if made by a sharp implement the width of a pencil-- and when Kaidan crouches down, he sees that it’s gone clear through to the other side.

“I think cause of death is pretty clear,” he murmurs. “Though I can’t imagine how anyone would have been able to get the drop on Bailey like this. His desk’s facing the door, which means that he would have seen if anyone had come in.”

“Think he knew the perp?” Joren asks, tilting his head.

“He must have… can’t imagine Bailey ever letting anyone get the drop on him otherwise,” Kaidan replies. “Has anyone interviewed the receptionist? The people outside?”

“I did, sir,” Driix pipes up. “The human said she left at the end of her shift and didn’t notice anything odd. Her relief, Jeena L’Akar, says it was unusual for the commander to stay this late. He was due to go home after the first receptionist left.”

“I see,” Kaidan replies, frowning. Because the Citadel was a space station, there was no day or night to dictate open hours for offices. Almost everything operated constantly, and practically every non-major position had some sort of relief. Bailey, however, had held a singular position, and would not have been open for appointments at the time of his death.

“Who was the last person in to see him?”

Driix glances at his omni-tool. “That would have been the first receptionist, Mary Darwin,” he says. “Before that, he had an appointment with officer Nikos. Both of them claim he was alive when they last saw him, and by the time L’Akar came in to check in on him, he’d been dead for hours.”

“Surveillance camera was wiped, obviously,” Joren puts in. “The ones in the hallway as well. And, predictably, no one in the main atrium saw anyone of note come through.”

Kaidan nods. There are a majority of things that can wipe camera feeds nowadays, from electrical discharges to faulty wiring. Judging from the precision strike on Bailey, he doubts the murderer would be any less than perfect in his cleanup.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” he says.

***

By the time Kaidan staggers home, David’s getting ready for work. They’d finished their scans and C-Sec had come in to process the scene, but Kaidan had opted to wait until they wrapped everything up. He’d made nice with the officer in charge, an Asari named Urla, and agreed to share updates.

SPECTREs very rarely involved themselves in cases like this, but after he made it clear that the arrest would be hers, she was very keen to accept his help.

He rubs his face tiredly as he strips down, tossing his clothing onto the back of a chair. C-Sec and SPECTREs don’t usually mix, but he always went the extra mile to get to know them. It had helped that Bailey had been a friend.

“David?” he calls, hearing the sound of water running in the ‘fresher. He walks into the bathroom and sticks his head into the stall, grinning a bit as the other man starts.

“Kaidan!” he exclaims, rubbing soap out of his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d be back until tonight.”

“I’ll head out again at noon,” Kaidan says. “They’re still running the body through the labs, and we won’t get anything new for a few hours.”

He eyes David appreciatively, smiling. “Need someone to wash your back?” he kids, and David rolls his eyes.

“I’m probably going to end up late to work,” he says. “But get in here, Alenko.”

Kaidan is only too happy to oblige.

 

**XVIII.**

Kaidan goes about investigating Bailey’s murder methodically, interviewing the handful of people who’d last seen him as well as whoever was recorded present at the atrium. The body had turned up no further leads beyond the exact time of death—whoever had killed him had been very careful.

It’s been two frustrating weeks since the murder and he’s made next to no progress. Bailey’s always been a hard man to get along with, but as far as motives for murder go… it’s a pretty short list. His wife had received a modest sum of credits after his death, but it certainly wasn’t enough to kill someone over. Beyond her, Kaidan had come up with a handful of politicians that Bailey hadn’t seen eye to eye with over the years, but nothing had come of those leads yet.

He rubs his forehead tiredly. Whatever Joren’s friendship with Bailey, the Turian was rapidly losing confidence in Kaidan’s abilities. He’d sat him down earlier and said that if he didn’t get any further on it, they’d have to let C-Sec take the reins once more.

“I need you on other assignments,” he’d said, eyes steely. “Driix can take over working with C-Sec on this one, but I can’t have one of my most experienced SPECTREs tied up on this indefinitely.”

So Kaidan had asked to be given at least until the end of the week to wrap up his leads, and Joren, after some small consideration, had agreed.

“Don’t make me regret handing Wesson’s peace summit to someone else,” he says. “He’s always on my case about assigning non-humans to him.”

Kaidan passes by the receiving desk on his way out of the SPECTRE office, nodding at the receptionist. “Got anything for me, Ashara?” he asks.

“Admiral Shepard dropped by an hour ago,” she replies. “You were in with Joren and he didn’t want to disturb you, but he asked for an appointment at thirteen hundred. He says you haven’t been responding to his emails.”

She looks at him pointedly, an eyebrow raised. “I told him that your omni-tool was probably just acting up, so I took the liberty of keying it into your schedule. He’ll be expecting you at his apartment at the Presidium.”

Kaidan winces; like practically everyone else in the galaxy, Ashara’s a fan of the admiral. “Yeah, I’ve just been pretty busy lately,” he says. “The Bailey investigation’s been pretty tough.”

Ashara sniffs. “Well, I suggest you make time, SPECTRE,” she says. “Shepard’s saved the galaxy several times by now—surely you can spare ten minutes.”

She goes back to her terminal and Kaidan leaves, face burning. He hadn’t been lying—the Bailey investigation *had* taken up most of his time—but he hadn’t wanted to answer Shepard, either. After he’d been reassigned, John had sent a couple of emails asking to see him. Kaidan put off replying because he wanted to get some distance between them, but he hadn’t meant to ignore him completely.

He checks his chrono; he’s got a couple of hours before his appointment with John.

He brings out his omni-tool and comms Crixis Ban, a low-level Volus diplomat that had once threatened Bailey. It’s a long shot, but he’s one of the last people on Kaidan’s list and he needs to cross him out.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he tells the Volus’ receptionist. “Clear his schedule.”

***

“You’re late,” is the first thing that Shepard says to him, not-quite-a-frown on his lips. He moves back enough for Kaidan to enter his apartment, palming the door shut as a camped reporter tries to sneak a shot in.

Kaidan has to resist the urge to levitate him. “Sorry, John,” he says instead, sighing. “I got caught up with something and I couldn’t get out of it.”

“The Bailey investigation?” Shepard asks, and Kaidan hesitates a bit before nodding.

“Yeah, this Volus I was interviewing tried to give me the slip,” he says. “Turns out that he *was* guilty, but of something else entirely. I had to chase him across half the Presidium commons before I caught up with him.”

“He started confessing the minute I grabbed him,” Kaidan continues. “Apparently, he’d been embezzling some post-war funding from the hospital; I had to turn him into C-Sec before coming here.”

“Sounds exciting,” Shepard remarks. He leans against the kitchen counter, Kaidan shifting awkwardly in the middle of the room.

“Er, so how can I help you?” Kaidan asks.

“You got yourself reassigned and you’ve been ignoring my emails,” Shepard points out. “You can ‘help’ me by telling me what’s up.”

He purses his lips, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’ve known each other a long time, Kaidan,” he continues. “Be honest with me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, John,” the other man replies, sighing. “Things got weird after the assembly, so I pulled some strings and got reassigned. I would’ve come and see you sooner, but the Bailey investigation came up and I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t put a hundred percent into catching his killer.”

Kaidan meets Shepard’s eyes. “But even if I wasn’t on such an important case,” he says. “I think you and I need some distance.”

John’s quiet for a long time, studying him evenly. It’s enough to make Kaidan shift uncomfortably, but marines are nothing if not pros at standing at attention. He waits it out.

Eventually John snaps out of it, leaving his place on the counter and stepping towards him. “You know what I think?” he asks slowly, eyes bright in the dim light. “I think that you wouldn’t be here if some small part of you didn’t want to be.”

He stops a few inches shy of actually bumping into Kaidan, so close that he can practically feel the warmth radiating from him. Kaidan swallows hard.

“I think that somewhere deep down,” Shepard reaches out, trailing his fingers up Kaidan’s arm. “You *want* to be convinced.”

“Shep— *John*. I really don’t,” Kaidan protests, but even he can tell it’s half-hearted at best.

When Shepard kisses him, one hand curled around his bicep and another slipping around his waist, for one brief moment, Kaidan allows it. The fire’s still there after all these years, and lust pools in his belly as keenly as if it were yesterday.

Then John’s tongue skims at the seam of his lips, and Kaidan crashes back down to reality. He braces his hands against John’s chest and *pushes*, harder than necessary, and for an instant there’s something truly ugly that flickers in Shepard’s eyes.

“I *can’t*, John,” Kaidan says, recoiling. “I told you—it isn’t fair to either of us.”

John looks away. “I know,” he says. “I just… hoped you would change your mind.”

He turns on his heel and retreats further into the apartment, fists clenched. “You should go, Kaidan,” he says. “We’re done here.”

It’s the coldest dismissal he’s ever gotten from the man, but Kaidan does what he’s told. He’s gone by the time Shepard looks up.

 

**XIX.**

 

 _//He can move his hands, now. Consciousness comes and goes, but he can feel his fingers clenching, curling into a fist._  

 _He remembers a blade, an echo of pain, and his back spasms._  

 _He thinks he almost might be able to open his eyes now, except when he does all he sees is a haze of red and warm darkness. This womb is both his cage and his salvation._  

_He sleeps. //_

 

Kaidan gets the call about the next murder on the day he’s due to turn the investigation over to Driix.

It’s the Asari consort this time, and she’s so peaceful in death that Kaidan thinks she could just be sleeping. He circles her body, studying the point of contact intently. It’s the exact same MO as Bailey, which had been what had prompted C-Sec to contact him.

“You’re lucky this report passed through my desk,” Urla says, raising an eyebrow at him. “The OIC might never have put two and two together if I hadn’t recognized the wound pattern.”

Kaidan nods, hunching down as he studies the graceful curve of Sha’ira’s neck. Even on a metal slab, she’s still beautiful. “It’s likely that the killer was the same person,” he says. “But the secrets that the consort is privy to are vast. If we’re dealing with a hired assassin, we’re going to have a hell of a time figuring out which secret she got killed over.”

“Tell me about it,” Urla grunts. “Her client list alone needed three officers assigned to it—she had appointments around the clock, and most of them with very influential people.”

Kaidan frowns. “Two unrelated individuals, same MO,” he says. “Everything about the way it was done screams ‘hired hit’, but for an assassin to use the same technique twice… it’s almost as if he or she wants us to know they did it. It’s like they’re leaving us a calling card.”

“That is unusual,” Urla admits. “But not unheard of. Maybe it’s gang-related? Bailey’s put a lot of people away in his time, and the consort… Well, she’s entertained some pretty unsavory sorts in the past herself. Maybe it’s personal?”

“Maybe,” Kaidan begins. He’s cut off by his omni-tool flashing, and he steps away with an apologetic glance.

It’s Joren on the other end, of course. “Alenko,” he snaps. “I heard you had a break in the Bailey case.”

“Not exactly a break,” Kaidan replies. “There was another murder with the same MO, and I think it’s safe to assume that it was by the same killer.”

Joren nods impatiently. “Yes, I heard as much,” he says. “It looks like this may have been bigger than we initially thought, so you’re staying on the case.”

His mandibles flare in what might have been a grimace. “Wesson’s been raising hell, but the consort’s high profile,” he continues. “Keep at it, SPECTRE. Find the bastard responsible.”

“Roger that, commander.”

Joren clicks off and Kaidan breathes a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been looking forward to having to sneak around behind his CO’s back, and now that he’s still officially on the case, he doesn’t have to. He’d promised Bailey’s wife that he’d find her husband’s killer, and he’d be damned if he went back on his word.

“I’ll get this son of a bitch, Owen,” he mutters, striding back into the morgue.

It’s a promise.

***

The evidence they collect from Sha’ira’s corpse is as sparse as it was from Bailey, but Kaidan manages a small breakthrough as he painstakingly goes through the surveillance vids.

Pads are littered across his living room table and David’s fast asleep in the bedroom, but Kaidan pops another stim pill and flips on the next holo. He’s looking through surveillance videos of the area around the consort’s place of business, hours before her time of death. It’s a particularly busy area of the Presidium, and the number of denizens walking around are almost impossible to track.

Kaidan’s got his work cut out for him.

He’s looking for anything that’s remotely suspicious, watching the Asari hostess manning the consort’s door. She turns away far more people than she lets in, and Kaidan keeps an eye out for anyone who looks particularly out of place.

He’s able to cross-check almost everyone who’s allowed in against Sha’ira’s client list, with only a handful that he can’t name. He freeze frames them as they enter, sending and storing them into his omni-tool for referencing. He doesn’t have full access to the SPECTRE network from his home, as the more sensitive information is remote access only at their HQ.

He rubs his eyes tiredly. Kaidan’s always been the type to throw himself into his work, but the hours he’s been pulling on this case have been insane even for him. David’s been nice enough not to give him shit about it, but Kaidan’s been coming home when he’s asleep and leaving before he wakes up, and he knows that he hasn’t been the best boyfriend lately.

Every time he closes his eyes, he imagines the kiss that John had given him. He didn’t ask for it, hadn’t thought he wanted it, but his lips burn every time he thinks about it. He hadn’t told David about it because he hadn’t wanted to upset him over something so small, but maybe… Maybe he wouldn’t be obsessing about it so much if he just came clean.

Ashes pads silently to his side, butting its head against his shins. It’s holding one of David’s little model cars in its mouth, and drops it in front of Kaidan.

“Yeah,” he says, resigned. “Maybe we should go talk to your other dad, huh?”

Ashes purrs sweetly in response.

***

In the end, David forgives him, because that’s what David does.

He isn’t happy about the kiss and he certainly isn’t happy about Kaidan waiting so long to tell him, but he understands that it hadn’t been Kaidan’s move and that he’d made sure it stopped there.

He runs a hand through his hair and sighs deeply. “It’s tough to be going up against the savior of the galaxy. If you want to take a break…” he begins, but Kaidan cuts him off before he can even finish the thought.

“I want to be with you,” he says firmly, reaching out to grip the other man’s wrist. “I don’t care about how decorated he is. Shepard and I… we have a history, but that’s all it is. History.”

Kaidan pulls David towards him and kisses him deeply, trying to tell him with actions that he’s who he truly wants. It’s been days since they were last intimate, and Kaidan realizes just how much he’s been missing the other man.

“Let me?” Kaidan breathes, mouth against his.

“…all right.” David hesitates only a second, then nods, brushing their lips together as he lays back on their bed.

Kaidan hooks a hand behind David’s knee, bending it gently as he reaches for the lube from the bedside table. It’s been a while since they took their time like this, too.

“Tell me when,” he says, watching his lover’s face as he prepares him, fingers scissoring inside him. David bites his lip, eyes closing as he pushes back /just so/. Sweat beads on Kaidan’s forehead as he watches him, back arched and so fucking beautiful he could scream.

He may have started this because David looked like Shepard, but he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t completely smitten with the man by now. From his stupid crooked grin to his unfailing sense of optimism, to the little frown he gets between his brows whenever Ashes breaks yet another of his models.

“Come on, Kaidan,” David breathes, hands gripping his shoulders. The words are strangely familiar but Kaidan’s so far gone he doesn’t even notice.

He lines himself up and pushes inside, and it’s slick, tight heat and Kaidan abruptly forgets everything else. For the next few moments, his world narrows to the taste of David’s mouth, the tight channel of his body, and the low, soft sounds that the other man makes beneath him.

He gets a hand between them and strokes him off in time to his thrusts, sweat pooling in the dip of David’s stomach. It’s pure muscle and flat planes, his abdominals so hard that Kaidan could bounce a quarter off of it if he tried. David isn’t military, but he certainly keeps in shape.

Kaidan kisses him deeply, their tongues tangling as he swallows down each moan. He can feel the heat build between them and he flicks his thumb over the head of David’s cock, listening as he makes a strangled sound and comes all over them both. Only then does he let himself go, breathing harshly as he shudders and spends himself inside his lover.

David cards his fingers through Kaidan’s hair as he holds him through the aftershocks of it, one of his feet hooked against his calf.

“Hey,” Kaidan murmurs, catching his breath as he pulls back far enough to see the blue in David’s eyes.

The other man smiles, crooked and small, but Kaidan’s heart lifts when he sees it. “I love you,” he whispers, and David’s fingers twine with his own.

“Yeah.”

 

**XX.**

It’s precisely five days later when the next murders happen, and Kaidan begins to realize that what was originally a personal investigation is now rapidly turning into a Very Serious Problem.

This time it’s a pair of perfectly ordinary siblings named Rebekah and Michael Petrovsky, and they leave behind an eight-year-old child named Jake. The place is crawling with C-Sec by the time Kaidan gets there, and he watches from a distance as Urla has her people scour the apartment.

“The kid’s over there,” Urla says, spotting him. “I’ve already taken his statement, but he wasn’t making much sense. Maybe another human will get something useful out of him.”

Kaidan shakes his head. “You’re all heart,” he mutters, but walks over to the kid anyway. As heartless as it sounds, she’s right. A friendly face (or species, for that matter), would likely go a long way in helping the boy open up.

“Hi there,” Kaidan says, stopping a few feet away. “Mind if I sit with you a bit?”

“I s’ppose.” Jake’s a small speck of a thing, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, his little hands curled into fists.

“Do you have someone who can take care of you?” Kaidan asks gently, taking a seat beside him.

Jake shakes his head, sniffling. “My dad died when I was little,” he says. “It was only me and mom and uncle Mike…”

He wipes a sleeve across his grubby face, and Kaidan feels his heart go out to him. He puts a hand on the kid’s shoulder and squeezes briefly. “My name’s Kaidan Alenko,” he says. “And I’m trying to find who did this to your mom and uncle.”

He pauses, rummaging in his pocket for one of David’s ever present spare bits of cloth. He finds one and offers it to Jake. “If you can remember anything that might help me catch the person who did this, it would be a big help,” he continues.

“I-I’ll try,” Jake says, wiping his nose. “Mom a-and uncle Mike were just outside my room… They were talking or watching vids. I… I don’t really remember. I was just in my room the whole time, and I got hungry a-and… when I went o-outside I saw them… on the floor.”

Tears well up and roll down his cheeks. “I called the number on the kitchen counter—the one mom said to call if anything ever happened,” he continues, and a glance at the pad shows that it’s for C-Sec. “And then you all came.”

“I see,” Kaidan says. “Did you see or hear anyone aside from your mom or uncle during that time?”

Jake hesitates, then shakes his head. “I d-didn’t hear anything,” he whispers. “I w-wish I could help.”

“Okay,” Kaidan says. “It’s okay, Jake. If you think of anything, day or night, give me a call, okay? Just ask the nice C-Sec lady to call the SPECTRE HQ and look for my name.”

“O-okay,” Jake says. He looks down. “Where will I go, now…?”

Kaidan tries to swallow past the lump in his throat, failing. “You’ll be going with officer Urla over there, who’ll place you with some nice people over at C-Sec,” he says. “You can stay at the station while they try to get ahold of your relatives, and see who can pick you up.”

“Oh.” Jake’s face falls even further. “I-I don’t think I have anyone left. A lot of mom’s family died during the war.”

“I… see,” Kaidan says. “Well, we’ve got the very best officers looking, Jake, I promise you that. We’ll find someone.”

Jake nods hesitantly, and Kaidan wonders if he’s trying to reassure the boy or himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**XXI.**

_Liara T’Soni dreams._  

_It’s an old dream, a familiar one._

_In the dream, she’s watching the back of the man she’s followed for three years, covering his flank just as the Turian scouts ahead. They’re following Shepard just as they always have, all the way to hell and to whatever lay beyond._  

 _Kaidan’s not here, he’s back at the ship—_ safe, _a small part of her mind whispers,_ because he’s not expendable, unlike you. 

 _There’a beam of light now, cutting through the dust and grime and dirt. Liara tries to leap away, to move, but her feet are frozen to the earth and the explosion rips through her body._  

_It doesn’t hurt now, (not like before, when flames danced across her suit and blistered her skin ‘til it was charred and burned), and as she falls to the ground and she loses sight of Garrus completely._

_Shepard, though… he staggers to his feet and keeps going, just as he always has. She’s helpless, she can’t do anything but watch, waiting for the sky to fall as he disappears in a brilliant column of light. When it happened, she remembers waiting in the rubble-- broken and bleeding, willing her hands to open the pouch at her side, to seal her wounds-- for what seemed like forever._

  _Now, though, is a dream (one can never forget that it is a dream), and scarcely has she closed her eyes when she hears an explosion rocking the battlefield once more, followed by a dull sound of cheering that cuts through the abyss._

 _She opens her eyes, staggers to her feet, (the medigel had been half-empty back then, and she’d been bleeding profusely when she found him), and picks her way across the rubble._  

 _In her dream, her feet know the steps. Right past the burned husk, straight ahead until she reaches the battered corpses. He’s half-buried under rubble, but he’s /breathing/-- goddess, he’s breathing, and there are tears on her face as she radios her agents in orbit._  

 _“Take me away from here,” she begs them, and in the dream she watches the stars, Shepard in her arms._  

_When his heart stops, she howls._

Liara wakes up at this point, her body covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Her bed is small, a dirty mattress on the floor of a room filled with screens. She waits for her heart to stop racing, for the sweat to cool on her skin. It’s an old dream, an unpleasant one, but she cannot forget it.

She gets to her feet with some effort; her body aches. She’s a maiden still, but her mind feels old—scarred with battle. She’s seen _so_ much death.

She waves a hand at the largest monitor and it comes to life, the others flipping on as it does so. Once she had hundreds of agents, dozens of lairs. She’s nothing, now, a mere shadow of her former self, with a single base and agents so few that she can count them on one hand.

“I have enough to watch over you, though,” she whispers, and smiles at the screen. They’re multiple views of the Citadel, monitoring various parts of it and constantly flipping from view to view.

The largest screen however, is reserved for the man himself.

“Hello, Shepard,” Liara murmurs. She leans back in her broken chair (in her broken room in her broken home), and watches.

***

It’s another long night for Kaidan as he reviews the surveillance vids from the areas surrounding the Petrovsky household. He’s opted to work from his desk at the SPECTRE HQ for this one, because as pleasant as David and Ashes are, he can’t afford any further distractions.

He starts from the point of death and works backwards, cataloguing every person who walks in and out of the apartment complex. Cross-referencing them against the list of residents is easy enough, but there are visitors who go in and out as well. The living areas of the Citadel are not particularly tight on security, and especially not for ordinary citizens.

He works well into the next shift, methodically removing all the residents from his list of entrants. Still, even after removing secondary relationships, he’s got well over thirty people on his list for a four-hour window alone. He hasn’t even begun to check past that, and he can’t discount the possibility that the assassin may have come in hours before, lay in wait, and then subsequently murdered the Petrovskys.

He frowns, dividing the list and sending it to the two new SPECTREs assigned to assist him. Joren had finally authorized extra help earlier that day, and Kaidan was glad of it. C-Sec support was all well and good, but they weren’t exactly equipped to handle this sort of thing.

“What am I missing?” Kaidan murmurs, leaning back in his chair.

He’s covered the front, back, and side entrances of the apartment complex, but the structure’s massive and has over sixty floors. He couldn’t discount the time element, nor could he discount the possibility of a cloak.

“Right,” he mutters, straightening. “Start with what I *can* eliminate first, then work from there.”

He taps in a few keys and opens a line to a harried-looking Driix. “SPECTRE Alenko,” the Salarian says. “How can I help you?”

“I just sent you a list of people to track down and question,” Kaidan says. “But before you do that, I need you to look into the black market trade in personal cloaking technology. It’s a long shot, so be discreet. You can discount the ones that sell the low-grade tech—the person I’m looking for is using a quality rig.”

Driix makes an interested sound in the back of his throat. “Black market’s usually tight-lipped,” he says. “Their customers pay big credits for privacy. But I’ll see what I can do, SPECTRE.”

He clicks off, and Kaidan returns to his vids. He forwards back to the time of death and starts from there, the various entrances splitting the screen into four.

“Eliminate the possibilities,” he repeats to himself. He leans forward, calling up the structure schematics. The Petrovskys lived on the second floor, which was accessible through the four entrances, the building’s main elevators, six stairwells, and…

“The window,” Kaidan breathes. He manipulates the schematics again, calling up the list of surveillance cameras stationed across the complex. They cover most of the entryways and stairwells, but nothing for the outside of the building.

“It’s got to be it,” he says. He’s seen the outside of the structure—there are plenty of rails and balconies, and a single floor wouldn’t be difficult to scale at all.

He calls up the Citadel schematics and registers the bank directly across the Petrovsky’s side of the building. Banks were notorious for keeping ridiculous levels of surveillance all over their establishments, and if Kaidan could tap into one that had a view of the apartment building… /Yes/.

Dry mouthed, he zooms into the structure across the street, focusing on the Petrovskys’ window. There’s not a lot of movement, and he speeds up the playthrough to rewind before the time of death.

The seconds and minutes zoom past in the blink of an eye, and Kaidan almost misses the figure clambering gracefully up the Petrovsky balcony. He nearly falls over in his haste to press the pause button, and the time stamp reads two hours and twelve minutes before Rebekah and Michael met their end.

“Gotcha, you son of a bitch,” Kaidan mutters. His fingers shake as he keys in the command to slow the playback to normal speeds. He watches as the tiny figure leaps onto the railing, clambers up onto the second floor balcony, pauses, and glances behind him before entering the apartment.

Kaidan’s heart stops.

The zoom is maxed out, but even with grainy, black-and-white pixels, he’d know that face anywhere.

David.

 

**XXII.**

 

 _//When he wakes, it is with cold hands on his face and the cold steel of a med table beneath him. His thoughts are sluggish, the air is cold._  

_He’s shivering—the first time in a long time, and he can feel his cybernetics and implants coming to life. There’s tech in him (a lot of it, by the feel of things), more so than ever before._

_He licks his lips, tries to speak, but all that comes out is a strange rasp. “Mmyy… mahhh…”_  

 _The hands leave his face abruptly, and he flails, trying to find purchase._  

_“Hold still,” the voice says. ”I have it.”_

  _The mask slips onto his face, cool metal sliding across his skin. When he opens his eyes, the vision of his master is gone. In his stead is a pale, balding scientist who nervously shifts from foot to foot._

_“Welcome back to the living, operative Leng.”//_

 

Rebekah is dead.

Rebekah is dead, and Michael with her. The latter almost certainly a casualty of being related to the former, perhaps caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Liara passes a hand over her eyes, grimacing.

  
Sloppy. She was sloppy, and now one of her agents is dead. Once upon a time, she would’ve just made a call, assigned someone else to replace the resulting hole in her network. But each resource is precious now, and her modest reach grows smaller still.

“Shepard,” she whispers. Everything she’s done is for him—to save him, to bring him back. But now it seems that everything is starting to crumble, and her castle is made of glass. Soon, there will be nothing left.

Rebekah is dead, her mission unfulfilled. There is another player on the board, someone pulling the puppet’s strings.

“I’ll find you,” she whispers, hands clenching into fists. The promise may or may not be hollow; it’s been so long, *too* long, and she’s lost her taste for this.

She can’t do anything about Bailey, or Sha’ira, or poor Rebekah. She doesn’t have the resources, doesn’t have the time. Her mouth thins. Time. She hasn’t been out of her lair in weeks (months? years?), and her world has narrowed to her room of screens.

“Eyes on Shepard,” she mutters. “Get him out.”

She calls up her omni-tool and types in a series of numbers feverishly, encrypting the channel. Only a Reaper would be able to break into it now, but one can’t be too careful. She’s slipped up with Rebekah somehow—an information leak, her mind supplies—and it will never happen again.

Her agent answers on the first beep, blinking his obsidian eyes at her. “Petrovsky, then,” he says, and Liara nods. “Obviously related. Knew it all along.”

“We have to assume that Rebekah failed her mission,” Liara says. “Shepard’s volatile right now, and the other side’s about to move… I can feel it. You need to get him out of there.”

Any other person would pause to argue—kidnapping the savior of the galaxy is a tall enough order—but to his credit, the Salarian merely nods. “Where?” he asks.

“Here,” Liara replies. The time for games is over.

“Bring him home.”

***

When Kaidan gets back to the apartment, it’s completely dark.

David’s not due to be home for a little white yet, and he’s glad for the brief respite. He sits on the couch, eyes on the door, Ashes twining around his ankles. It can sense his anxiety; it mewls at him in the dim light.

“I have to know,” Kaidan tells it, trailing his fingers across its back. “I can’t bring him in without at least talking to him…”

He closes his eyes briefly, going over the evidence. He doesn’t have much, not really, just a grainy video shot from a video across the street. They’ve never lied to each, and Kaidan wants to trust that David will tell him what he was really doing there. He’s hoping against hope that he’s got another explanation for it, some logical reason why he’d be there.

There’s no exit captured on the surveillance vids—Kaidan had gone through them for hours. He has no idea when David had left, whether it was before time of death or afterwards, but with so little evidence to go on, he has to make the arrest. His only other option is cloaking tech, but with Driix not turning anything up on it yet, David’s the closest thing he’s gotten to a break in the case.

He calls up his omni-tool, replaying the scene. He freezes it on David’s face, practically identical to John Shepard’s, but so different in so many ways.

Kaidan wonders, not for the first time, of what John would have been like if he hadn’t gone through the horrors of Mindoir. Would he have turned out more like David? Or would he still have pursued his career in the Alliance? There’s so much innocence still in his lover, innocence that was stripped—no, *torn*—from John Shepard at such a young age. Loathe as he is to admit it, a large part of being the hero that the Admiral is… comes from what the world made him into.

Kaidan shakes his head. There’s no point in wondering about what-ifs. There is only the now.

“You’re going to break my heart, aren’t you?” he mutters, and shuts off his tool.

There’s a soft hiss as his apartment door slides open.

David’s home.

 

**XXIII.**

 

 _// “My name’s Wilson,” the man says. “Herbert Wilson. I, ah, was in charge of the Lazarus project before Operative Lawson took over. I was moved to a project of less importance, and our… benefactor… suggested that I learn to embrace the possibilities of science more openly.”_  

 _He pushes his glasses up on his nose, blinking at Leng. “There wasn’t a lot of time after… after Shepard took the base,” he continues. “But He had me take your body, try to save you. It’s been… well. It’s been a while, since then.”_  

 _Kai Leng gazes at him evenly, registering all the possible ways he can end his life. Pathetic meatsack. His mouth twists._  

 _“And our master?” Leng rasps. “Where is he?”_  

 _Wilson takes a step back. “Dead. They’re all dead,” he says. “Well, mostly, anyway. Shepard killed practically everyone, blew up the mass relays, killed the Reapers. Our benefactor told me to take your body, take this ship, work on you. I did. That’s all I’ve been doing. It’s been… it’s been years.”_  

_He rambles on, but Leng stops listening as soon as he hears the name. Shepard. The man who took his life, who destroyed Cerberus and killed his… Bile rises in the back of Leng’s throat, and he staggers to his feet, fingers grasping at the ghost of his sword._

  _“Where is he?” he growls, voice a furious whisper. “Tell me where he is—so I can rip out his heart.” //_

 

“You’re home!” David pauses in the doorway, shifting. “I didn’t expect you back so early.”

Kaidan gets to his feet. “I had some things to take care of here,” he says slowly. It’s the first time he’s seen David face-to-face since the Petrovsky murders, and beyond leaving a quick message to say that he’d be working late yesterday, he hasn’t spoken to him at all. “Are you all right?”

“…no,” David says. He finally steps inside, and the door hisses shut behind him. Once he steps into the light, Kaidan can see the dark circles under his eyes, the weary set of his brow. “Not really.”

He shrugs off his jacket, taking a seat on the far-end of the couch. “I’ve been having some pretty weird dreams lately,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Trouble sleeping.”

Kaidan makes no move to touch him, just sits back down, bracing his hands on his knees. “I haven’t been around much lately,” he says. “But you know that… you can talk to me about anything, right?”

David gives him a vague half-smile, nodding. “I know,” he says. “I just… I’m not sure there’s anything to tell, really. The dreams I’ve been having… they’re so vivid. It’s like having day dreams or reliving a memory or… something. It seems silly, and I’ve been ignoring them, but…”

He stands abruptly, crosses to the kitchen and pouring himself a glass of water. “Today, I…” He shakes his head. “I thought I recognized her… the woman in the news vids. The one who was killed.”

Kaidan’s pulse quickens as he rises to his feet. His sidearm hangs heavy at his belt. “Rebekah Petrovsky,” he says.

David looks up at him, startled. “H-how did you know?” he asks. “I saw her on the news this morning, on my way to work. I… She looked so familiar, but I don’t… I don’t *think* I’ve met her before.”

He sways on his feet, looking ashen, and Kaidan can’t help himself. He moves to David’s side, taking his elbow.

“You need to sit down,” he says. “The Petrovsky case—I’m on it, David.”

He helps him back to the couch and takes a seat beside him. “Can you remember what your dream was about?”

David looks at him in confusion, blue eyes narrowed. “I can try,” he says. “But… it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.”

“Tell me anyway,” Kaidan urges, and David nods.

“There was a room,” he says. “With blue light. There were people, places… but they were in the light. I could see them beyond it… inside it, maybe? And Rebekah, she was there, too. She was the center of it, somehow, and I grab her and…”

He trails off, his hands clenched into fists. “I can’t remember the rest,” he says. “Why is this important?”

Kaidan looks him squarely in the eye. He owes that to him, at least. “I have a surveillance video of you breaking and entering into the scene of the crime,” he says. “And I need to bring you in for questioning.”

“I—what?” David says, reeling back. “But… it was a dream… You have to believe me, I would never hurt anybody—I’ve never even fired a gun in my life!”

Kaidan approaches him slowly, palm outstretched. “It’s all right,” he says, voice soothing. “I believe you, David. I do.”

David watches him warily. “You… do?”

“I do,” Kaidan says. Just a little bit more, he thinks. “Just take my hand, and we’ll figure out what’s happening to you, all right? We can go down to HQ together…”

David pitches forward, hands going to his head, and Kaidan doesn’t have time to think. He wraps his arms around the other man—the man who’s been by his side for the past six months, who’s been his lover, his partner, and his friend.

“David!”

Blood trickles from his nose, and Kaidan can see his eyes going bloodshot and red. “Wh-what’s happening to you?” he asks urgently, trying to shift the weight. “David, tell me how I can help you!”

“’fresher,” David mutters thickly, and Kaidan nods, helping him stagger into the bathroom. He leans on the sink, running his blood-stained fingers under the tap and rinsing his face. He flinches when his eyes close, and Kaidan bites his lip.

“I’m going to get you a towel,” Kaidan says. “And something for your head.”

David mumbles something unintelligible, and Kaidan steps outside, palming the door. His mind’s racing, and he busies his hands with rummaging through their cupboard for his first aid kit. There’s clearly something wrong with David, and he needs help rather than a jail cell. He briefly contemplates contacting Driix to inform him of this development, but he knows that if he does, the Salarian will insist on an arrest.

He finds his brain pills—the stuff he uses when his migraines become unbearable—and palms them. If he can get David calmed down, he can bring him to Huerta Memorial for some scans. Kaidan’s never heard of implants beyond the L2s behaving like this, but he’s willing to pursue other explanations for David’s sake.

David.

As soon as he walks back into the bedroom, he knows something’s wrong. The window’s open and letting in the artificial Citadel breeze. Heart in his throat, Kaidan drops the meds and crosses to the bathroom, slamming a hand against the door panel. He already knows what he’s going to find, but he *has* to check.

The door opens, and his heart sinks.

It’s empty.

 

**XXIV.**

The water slides down her throat, cool and clean.

It’s a simple pleasure, one that people often take for granted, but Liara knows how precious it is. “I remember lying in the dirt for hours, watching the skies burn,” she whispers. “Too tired to stand, my throat so parched that I couldn’t even speak.”

The middle screen flickers, and her eyes turn luminous. “The first mistake people make about clones,” she says. “Is assuming that they’re copies.”

She flicks a glance at the doorway; shadows and darkness beyond it. “Perfect cloning is next to impossible, after all,” she says. “The Asari have tried so hard to replicate our Commandos, but even they turned out wrong. Perfect agility and strength, but for some reason… their skin always turned out green.”

She smiles thinly. “But humans… Humans were smart about it,” she says. “They outlawed the process, made it next to impossible to put together the resources required to clone a human. And they had good reason to… the human mind, it doesn’t replicate well. The technology was never perfected for their race—the neural pathways would degrade almost immediately after the clone became conscious.”

“And if… by some miracle, one was able to extend the life of a clone,” she continues. “Past the handful of days it would take for the neural pathways to degrade completely… what, then? The strain of growing an adult clone in a handful of months would eventually catch up, driving it mad.”

She waves a hand, and all the screens mimic the center display. Shepard looks out at her from across the stars.

“What kind of life would that be?” she asks. “What kind of person would subject anyone—human or otherwise—to an existence made of borrowed time?”

***

“How could I have been so stupid??” Kaidan bares his teeth, bringing out his omni-tool as he crosses the living room. He slaps his free hand against the door pad so hard that the frame shakes.

David’s nowhere in sight. Their apartment is smack in the middle of one of the busiest housing areas of the Citadel, and Kaidan knows that his chances of being able to pick up his trail are slim. He stands in the middle of the street and turns abruptly on his heel; a passing Asari raises a brow.

He’s been played. Of *course* he’s been played, and if Kaidan were any greener, any less experienced, perhaps he would’ve been able to forgive himself. As it is, he’s cursing himself for falling for the oldest trick in the book.

He shakes his head, glancing down at the tool strapped to his arm. Driix still isn’t responding to his call, and neither is Urla. He slaps the control and ends both calls, resisting the urge to smash his fist into the nearest wall.

If David wasn’t at the top of his suspect list earlier, he certainly is now. Kaidan’s mouth thins; as loathe as he is to admit he needs the help, he still knows exactly where to go to get it.

He takes a car and three lifts to get to Shepard’s rooms, and even though he hasn’t been there in weeks, his feet still know the steps. He and John haven’t been the best of friends lately, but if there’s one person he trusts, it’s him.

John answers the door on the second chime, and Kaidan meets his gaze head-on.

“I need your help.”

***

David Anderson is running.

He doesn’t know where, doesn’t know why. He only knows that he needs to get out of there, out of Kaidan’s house and out of his lover’s presence. There are memories coming now, (true and not true, a little voice inside of him whispers), spiking behind the whites of his eyes.

He can see his father dying on the streets of Mindoir, his mother screaming at him to run. He can see his father smiling at him, pushing him onto the shuttle bound for the Citadel. His mother packs him a sandwich. (They’re dead, though, dead and gone, except didn’t he just comm them a few weeks ago?)

David wipes his eyes, staggering forward.

“They’re alive,” he mutters. “They’re all alive, they’re fine…”

He lurches into a dinghy alley, a narrow space that blocks out the Citadel’s bright lights. The shadows are cool, calming for a moment, but then he’s assaulted by a memory of fire and wrath. Of hunching behind a steel bulkhead, a weapon burning hot in his hands. Someone is screaming in his ear.

“We can handle ourselves! Go back and get Alenko!!”

He can see her face, now, but he can’t say her name. It’s his fault she’s dead, after all.

Ash.

David goes down on his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach into the dinghy floor, retching until there’s nothing left but bile. He grimaces, wiping his mouth against his sleeve. He backs away until he hits the cool steel of the wall behind him, curling in towards himself.

“Th-they aren’t true,” he tells himself. “It’s not real... someone, please…”

His head is throbbing, and when he shuts his eyes, all he can see is her. Rebekah. He knows her, he thinks. Something important happened to her.

“Did I…?” He holds up his hands and blinks; he can see them covered in blood, covered in dirt, clutching a weapon, burns all over and up to his elbows, and he *knows*.

It’s a memory. Rebekah is on the floor, so very still, and David’s ripping a wire from the back of his neck, his implant tingling from the pressure. He’s looking around the unfamiliar apartment, recognizing nothing, and his face is wet. He reaches up to touch the cold tears on his face; they’re almost alien to him.

A shadow falls over him, and David blinks, dazed with the memory. “Wh-who are you…?” he mutters, but the figure is silhouetted against the light and he can’t make out their face.

“Go to sleep, Anderson,” the figure says, but before David can react, he hears the soft hiss of a hypospray going into his forearm.

Darkness claims him.

 

**XXV.**

Shepard’s quiet for a long time as he listens to Kaidan talk. He’s standing with his arms braced on top of the kitchen counter, head bowed, as Kaidan gets out every sordid detail. He tells him everything, from discovering David on the surveillance vids to falling for his deception and allowing him to escape, to the fact that there have been no leads in any of the previous murders.

When he finishes, Shepard nods. “Tell me what you need,” he says. “And I’ll help you in any way that I can.”

“I need to find him,” Kaidan says, running a hand through his hair. “It was my fault he got away, and the brass is going to have my head. I just… I can’t do this alone, John.”

“They don’t need to know,” Shepard replies, holding up a hand when Kaidan begins to protest. “Not yet, anyway. If we find him before Driix finds the surveillance video, you’ll be able to bring him in without anyone being the wiser.”

He reaches out, gripping Kaidan’s forearm. “I’m with you,” he says. “Always.”

And Kaidan can almost muster a smile at that, at good old Shepard riding in to save the day yet again. “Thank you,” he says earnestly. “John, I know that I haven’t been around much lately, but I want you to know… I’m grateful that we’re friends. Still friends, even after everything.”

The title isn’t lost on Shepard, but he only smiles, his hand a warm weight on Alenko’s arm. “You can trust me, Kaidan,” he says. “He isn’t worth this-- it’s always been you and me. You know it as well as I do.”

He’s nearer now, so close that Kaidan can see the flecks of grey mixed in with the blue of his eyes. His breathing quickens in spite of himself, and for just a minute, he’s back on the Normandy and John’s his entire world.

This time, when Shepard kisses him, Kaidan doesn’t pull away.

***

Beyond the archway is utter darkness. A lone bulb flickers somewhere high above, illuminating the docking area. There’s nothing there, but Liara knows better.

“Having the technology to do something doesn’t mean one has the right to do it.” Liara says quietly, inching towards the far terminal, towards her pistol strapped to the underside of the desk.

Almost there. Just a few more feet. Her gaze flicks towards the screens; Shepard is on his knees in a dirty alley. Shepard is embracing Alenko. The screens are split in two.

“Races have lived and died over far less than a single individual playing God.” Her fingers find purchase under the edge of the desk, and she closes her hand over it in triumph.

“Playing God?” The voice behind her is as smooth as silk. “Surely he that giveth life can also take it away?”

Liara bares her teeth, whirling around and firing off two shots in succession. Kai Leng dodges them easily, backhanding her viciously and sending her tumbling to the floor. Her biotics flare, but he twists in the air, landing cat-like to avoid the blast.

He smiles, a Cheshire grin. “I must give you credit, Doctor T’Soni,” he says. “You were quite difficult to find.”

Liara gets to her feet, wiping blood from her mouth. “You’ll never win,” she grinds out. “Shepard will stop you.”

The rasp of Leng’s blade as he unsheathes it resounds in the silent room. “My previous sword killed that Drell pet of Shepard’s,” he says, almost conversationally. “I will enjoy christening this one with your blood.”

And with that, he charges.

***

It’s too easy to lose himself around Shepard, to narrow his world to the hand curled around his wrist, to let John push him back against the wall. One of Kaidan’s arms ends up pinned behind him and Shepard’s still holding his free hand, his considerable weight keeping him securely against the wall.

The ghost of the last time they were together flutters behind his eyes. It was him doing the pushing back then, and he remembers John’s smile when he took his data pad, playfully shoving him onto the bed. “John,” he says, straining to move his other hand, to touch him.

The other man merely smiles, his glint of teeth razor-like in the dim light. He keeps Kaidan where he is, pressed against him from thigh to chest, his mouth moving down to the underside of his jaw.

“Come on, Kaidan,” he breathes, almost playful, tugging at the neck of the SPECTRE’s uniform. The words are familiar enough coming from John’s mouth, but it isn’t his lips that Kaidan pictures now. David’s crooked grin flashes in his mind’s eye, and something… something inside him makes him stop.

He isn’t ready for this, not by a long shot.

Something flickers in John’s eyes when Kaidan turns his head away, and he presses his lips against the other man’s jaw. “Something on your mind, soldier?” He whispers, voice husky.

John’s never been shy about this, not after they decided to screw regs and just /be/ together, but the hands on his wrist and curled around his waist feel almost alien now. “John, I don’t…” Kaidan begins, but he’s interrupted by the chime of his omni-tool.

“I have to take this,” he says. Shepard’s pupils are so dilated they’re almost black, and the hand on his wrist tightens briefly, painfully. “I-I’ll just be a minute, all right?”

For a brief, insane moment, Shepard doesn’t move, and Kaidan becomes increasingly aware of the fact that he’s being held down. His breathing quickens and his muscles tense, the tingle at the base of his skull reminding him of his ever-present ‘gift’.

Then Shepard’s face relaxes into a small grin and he steps back, letting him go. “Don’t be long,” he says. “You can take the call in the bedroom.”

“Right,” Kaidan says carefully, skirting around him. His heart’s still racing but he manages to keep his gait steady as he palms the door control. John’s room is as Spartan as Kaidan’s ever seen, and he steps inside and hits the lock.

“Alenko,” he says, and Driix’s face pops into view.

“SPECTRE, I apologize for not taking your call earlier,” the Salarian says. “I was in the middle of a rather… sensitive investigation.”

He pauses, and his image wavers slightly. “Are you in a secure location?”

Kaidan glances around, frowning slightly. The door’s locked, the windows are sealed, and the only other exit is the bathroom. “Yes,” he says. “Report, Driix.”

“There are currently only five traders on the Citadel with the means to move the kind of technology you’re looking for, and only three of those five carry cloaking technology,” Driix says. “It took some digging, but I was able to get two of the traders to divulge the information that our investigation required.”

He rubs his chin thoughtfully. “One of them sold a couple of crates of the tech to Aria T’Loak, and another to a member from the Blood Pack.”

“The assassinations are gang-related?” Kaidan frowns. If Driix was right, that would clear David, but somehow the victims just didn’t seem like Aria’s style. She preferred to steer clear of C-Sec whenever possible, and the Petrovskys just didn’t *fit*.

Sure enough, Driix shakes his head. “I didn’t think it was very likely, either,” he says. “So I had a chat with a few low-level members. Seems like there’s a pretty big need for the suits on Omega, and T’Loak’s manipulating the market.”

“So it’s smuggling related,” Kaidan says. “Damn. What about the third trader?”

Driix nods. “I paid him a visit again after the other two turned out to be dead ends,” he says. “He was less than welcoming this time around, but before he had his goons throw me out, I was able to plant a transceiver under his desk.”

“Meaning you couldn’t pick up actual audio, but a standard scan wouldn’t have been able to detect it,” Kaidan remarks. “Very subtle.”

Driiz smiles thinly. “Yes, I thought so,” he says, then straightens. “He made a call as soon as I left, sir. I couldn’t get an exact trace without drawing attention to the device, but I was able to get a read on the carrier signal.”

Kaidan frowns. “And…?”

“Sir, the signal was incredibly complex, highly encrypted. But I kept at it, managed to identify the make before it degraded completely. It was Alliance.” Driix takes a breath, steeling himself. “Admiral-class.”

Alenko’s blood runs cold.

“But the only admirals on the Citadel right now are Hackett and—“ His voice trails off as he feels the cold barrel of a gun touch the back of his neck.

“I was told to save you for last,” Shepard whispers, lips at Kaidan’s ear. “But now you’ve gone and ruined everything.”


	6. Chapter 6

**XXVI.**

 

 _//Leng’s in the room with the tank, watching Shepard breathe. He’s already got fingernails, his hair growing in by the centimeter. He’ll have to have it cut once the clone’s conscious._  

_Wilson’s prior research had been able to extend the life expectancy of the average clone by a handful of months, maybe more. It’s enough to get the job done, enough to get him inside. Leng’s mouth stretches in an unpleasant smile. The vengeance that he seeks, delayed due to Shepard’s death, is soon going to be realized._

  _He may not be able to kill Shepard, but he can destroy his legacy, ensure that everything he ever cared for, everyone he ever loved, pays the price for his deeds._  

 _He lays a hand on the tank. “Soon,” he whispers, and smiles._  

_Shepard will be reborn a second time. Hailed a conquering hero, in perfect position to strike down everyone responsible for his master’s death. A society of fools, destroyed from within. His plan is elegant, beautiful. Fitting._

  _There’s a knock on the door, hesitant at first, then stronger when Leng doesn’t speak. “Come,” Leng says, voice rising, but does not turn._  

 _Wilson steps into the room, pad in hand. “There’s been a… complication,” he begins. “I think you should see this.”_  

 _Leng takes the device wordlessly. His fingers clench around the frame, spider-thing cracks appearing on its surface._  

_Wilson takes a step back, swallowing._

  _“Is it him?” Leng asks._  

_Wilson hesitates, and Leng turns fathomless eyes towards him. “Y-yes,” he replies. “Someone went through a lot of trouble to get him on the Citadel under a different name, but I cross-checked him against Shepard’s original DNA markers that we had on file. His new identity’s a hack—a very good one—but I had the original, unaltered samples to check it against. It’s him.”_

  _“A clone,” Leng states, but Wilson’s already shaking his head._  

 _“He can’t be,” he says. “The resources it would take to do this, especially now—I would have heard about it. About the necessary equipment moving, at least. And the way he’s been planted… there’s no strategic value to it. The only logical assumption would be that… he’s the real thing.”_  

 _“And he doesn’t remember anything,” Leng says, voice flat._  

_Wilson pauses, nods. “Not a thing… He won’t even see you coming,” he says. His eyes flick towards the tank, then back at Leng. “Shall I destroy it, then? You won’t have any more use for it, now that you’ve the real Shepard to contend with.”_

  _“You’ll do no such thing,” Leng snaps. He lays a palm on the cold glass of the tank, watching as the clone’s chest rises and falls with each breath. This is a gift, he thinks. A chance to exact true vengeance on the man himself. He would be a fool to waste the opportunity._

  _“There are debts to settle with John Shepard,” Leng whispers. “And I will see them repaid tenfold.” //_

 

“Cut the line,” Shepard says, and when Kaidan doesn’t comply immediately, his thumb flicks off the gun’s safety. “Don’t make me ask twice.”

Kaidan complies, his omni-tool cutting a bug-eyed Driix off. “So… what is it, then?” he asks. “Facial reconstruction? Some sort of holo? Because you’re sure as hell not the John Shepard I knew—the man I knew would never stoop to cold-blooded murder.”

“Shut up,” Shepard says. “And turn around. Slowly, no sudden movements.”

“What’s your angle?” Kaidan asks, even as he moves to comply. He turns, keeping his hands at his sides, facing him squarely. Shepard’s got the gun leveled at him; from this distance, there’s no way he’s going to miss.

“I mean, Commander Bailey I can understand. Sha’ira’s a bit of a long shot, but maybe she had something on you. But the Petrovksys?” Kaidan frowns. “That makes no sense to me at all.”

Shepard’s gun arm doesn’t even waver. “Keep your hands where I can see them, Alenko,” he says. He moves to the bedside table, opening a drawer with his free hand and rummaging inside it. He produces a pair of steel cuffs, and he flicks the switch on with his thumb.

Blue light surges across the lines of steel, and Kaidan swallows. Biotic suppressors. Shepard tosses them at his feet.

“Put them on,” he says.

Kaidan hesitates, gaze flicking towards the pistol in John’s hand. He can feel his powers hum beneath his skin, aching for release, and he wonders if this imposter is the same crack shot as the real Shepard. If he was any less skilled, Kaidan would wager that he’d be able to lift him before he could get a shot in.

A shot rings out, hot plasma grazing his left shoulder and singeing his arm. Kaidan lets out a pained grunt, hitting the wall and gripping his shoulder.

“Try anything, and the next one goes into your chest,” Shepard says. He hefts the weapon, nodding at the cuffs. “Put them on, please.”

Kaidan complies, fitting his wrists into the neat grooves and wincing as they shut with a low hiss. He’s abruptly cut off from his biotics, the telltale hum of power strangely silent. “Now what?” he grits out.

Shepard smiles. “And now we go on a trip,” he says. “To see an old friend of yours. You may remember him-- he was once the Illusive Man’s most trusted hand.”

Kaidan’s eyes widen. “Kai Leng,” he breathes, and Shepard nods, smirking.

“There,” he says. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?” He gestures for Kaidan to precede him, and he palms the lock on the bedroom door.

“You realize that you’ll never make it to the docking bay,” Kaidan says. “Driix has alerted the authorities by now—you won’t get within ten feet of the place without getting shot at.” He glances over his shoulder at Shepard, but the other man remains impassive.

“Cloak’s top of the line,” Shepard says. He takes a knee and pulls a hidden latch under the kitchen counter, revealing a small recess. He pulls the cloak out—from the looks of it just a simple grey cape—and drapes it over himself. His gun hand doesn’t even waver as he slips his spare hand into the cloak’s wrist controller.

“I didn’t get the drop on Bailey by being sloppy,” he says. “And I certainly wouldn’t have gotten to that biotic bitch of yours without knowing a thing or two about stealth.”

It takes Kaidan a full second to process that last bit, but when he does, all blood drains from his face. A flare of orange blooms in Shepard’s irises, and he steps forward, smiling. “Oh, that’s right,” he says. “Your C-Sec friends won’t have discovered Jack yet. I have to admit, she put up a hell of a fi—

“YOU BASTARD!” Kaidan howls and, completely forgetting that his hands are tied and his biotics stripped, he throws himself bodily at Shepard and they crash onto the floor.

***

Her left side is covered in blood. Liara presses against the flow with her hand, trying to staunch the bleeding. She’s huddled inside one of the overhead vents, trying not to breathe too loudly.

Somewhere beneath her, she can hear Leng making short work of her automated battle drones. She’d managed to get away long enough to activate her interior defense system, but he’d clipped her with his blade before her machines had succeeded in distracting him.

“Is this the best you can do?” Leng’s voice wafts up, thick with contempt. “The Shadow Broker, indeed.”

Liara closes her eyes. From the sound of things, he’s made his way into engineering. Automated turrets should be firing up any minute now; if they manage to keep him distracted long enough for her to traverse the corridor without his hearing, she might be able to double back to the docking bay. It’s a slim chance, but one she’s willing to take.

She steels herself, listening intently for the telltale click of the pressure plates. She can’t waste any time; she’ll have to go for it as soon as they begin firing. She can hear his footfall, soft and unobtrusive, as he makes his way forward. She counts his steps, measuring his gait in her mind. Ten feet. Six feet. She holds her breath, hears the click and… nothing.

There’s a squeal of metal as a sword pierces through the underside of the vent, and Liara skitters back, all pretense of quiet forgotten. The piping gives way as Leng slices through, and Liara crashes to the floor below.

She throws her arms up in front of her instinctively, and she lands hard on her left side. There’s a sickening crack as her wrist takes the brunt of the impact, and she looks up, dazed.

Kai Leng’s smile is full of teeth. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” he says.

Beyond him, she can make out the mangled mess that were once her turrets, power lines sparking. Leng hefts his weapon, Liara closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

 

**XXVII.**

// _“Do you remember me?” Her voice is soft, gray around the edges, and her eyes look like they’ve seen too much death. “Do you remember how we met on the Citadel?”_  

_David doesn’t, and he tells her so. “Your email said that you could explain what’s been happening to me,” he says afterwards, hands on his knees. Rebekah Petrovsky’s couch is green, and he can hear the sound of a child’s voice coming from one of the inner rooms. It saddens him somehow, but he can’t explain why._

  _He rubs at his temples, trying to dismiss the imagery that wells up. “It’s been getting worse,” he says. “It used to just be dreams about the war. But nowadays… it’s been getting worse. I’ve been getting them during the day and… if I didn’t know better, I’d say they feel almost like memories.”_

  _“I know this may seem confusing to you,” Rebekah says softly. “But I met you on the old Citadel. My brother and I were arguing… you stepped in and stopped us. It probably didn’t mean much to you, but I wrote to you afterwards, thanked you. And years later, we met again, when you came back to stop the...”_

  _She pauses, smiling thinly. “I’m probably not making much sense,” she says. “But there are things you’ve forgotten. Things that you’re starting to remember. I represent someone who wishes to help you do that fully.”_

  _“Why all the secrecy, then?” David asks. “Why did I have to sneak in here?”_  

 _“There are people who would harm you if they knew you were alive,” Rebekah replies. “It was a necessary precaution.”_  

_David shakes his head. “It sounds crazy,” he says. “But I can’t shake the feeling that I know you from somewhere. And I’ve never been to the old Citadel, but when I see holos of it on the news… It feels like a memory.”_

  _Rebekah nods. “That’s because it is,” she says earnestly. “You were a good man, David. A great man. But the war… it hurt a lot of people. You lost your memory because of the injuries you suffered… I can help you regain them.”_

  _She stands, moving to a nearby desk and withdrawing a small black box. There’s a thin silver wire running out of it, with a single prong at the end. David’s implant port tingles just from looking at it._

  _“If you trust me,” she says. “I can help you.”_  

_David takes a breath. “Tell me one thing,” he says. “If I remember everything that I… that you say I’ve lost… will I still remember my life now? Will I still remember Kaidan?”_

  _Rebekah smiles softly. “Yes,” she replies. “I daresay SPECTRE Alenko seems to be a constant in your life.”_

  _He nods. “All right,” he says. “I’ll do it.”_ //

 

David wakes up to a fist in his stomach.

It knocks the breath out of him and he doubles over, wheezing, attempting to curl into himself. Awareness seeps slowly, and he realizes that he’s strapped to a chair, hands and feet securely fastened to a chair.

“Hold his head up.”

A rough hand grasps a handful of hair and *yanks*, and David winces against the harsh light. A man steps before him, pulling a pen light out and shining it directly into his left eye. He shrinks back, trying to turn his head away, but an arm snakes around his neck and holds him steady.

“Let the doc do what he wants,” a voice beside his ear says. “Or I’ll cut you.”

David manages a nod, and the arm loosens ever so slightly. He gasps air into his lungs and the doctor steps forward once more, peering into his eyes and taking down notes.

“My name is Wilson,” he says, tucking his light into the pocket of his white coat. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and it would be better for everyone involved if you answered them. So please—save us both the trouble and cooperate.”

The arm around his throat tightens, and David nods again before Wilson gestures. The pressure disappears, and what looks like a military grunt steps out from behind him. He takes up a stance behind the doctor, crossing his arms against his chest. They look about as big as tree trunks, and David winces.

“Fire away,” he manages, voice hoarse.

“Excellent,” Wilson says. “First of all: what is your name?”

“If you wanted my name, you could’ve just asked,” David replies, squinting. “You didn’t really have to go to all the trouble of kidnapping me, you know.”

Wilson peers at him over the rims of his glasses, then nods at the guard. David braces himself, but the punch across his jaw still knocks his head back with the force of it.

“Answer the question, please,” Wilson says.

David blinks up at him, vision swimming. “Anderson,” he manages, and Wilson nods. “David Anderson.”

This time, the fist goes into his sternum. Wilson takes a step back, making a notation in his clipboard. “Your name?”

David wheezes, trying to straighten. “Wh- are you deaf?” he asks incredulously. “I just *told* you--!”

Wilson purses his lips, nodding, and the grunt takes another shot. “Answer the question,” he says, and David bares his teeth.

“David Anderson,” he spits out. “I work in a pet store. Grew up on Mindoir. I like long walks on the Citadel and—“

This time, the guard doesn’t even wait for Wilson’s cue before stepping in. David gets a split lip for his trouble, and he tastes blood on his tongue. Still, he’s got a vague half-smile on his face when he looks up at the doctor.

“The name’s *still* David Anderson,” he says. “Also, my boyfriend’s a SPECTRE, and he’s going to kick your a—“

He’s spitting blood by the time the grunt’s done with him for that one, and his nose feels like it’s broken in at least two places.

Wilson makes another notation in his clipboard, then withdraws an earpiece from his coat pocket.

It’s going to be a long day.

***

The sound of the gunshot is deafening, and Liara waits for the heat of the bullet, the agony of it digging into her flesh. Her eyes are shut tight, her arms pinned by the weight of Leng on top of her, and she waits and waits until she realizes that she remains undamaged.

She opens her eyes, looking up at Leng in confusion. His blade is in its sheathe, his gun steady in his hand. There is a smoking hole in the floor next to her head, and the side of her face is tingling with the heat of the shot.

“You haven’t killed me,” she says, dumbly.

Leng’s head is cocked to the side, listening intently, and when he turns she sees the earpiece attached to his headgear. “You’d better be certain,” he says, the edge in his voice all too apparent. “Or I’ll take it out of your hide.”

There is a pregnant pause as he listens to whoever is on the other line, and Liara considers trying to throw him off and making a run for it. Without batting an eyelash, Leng thumbs the hammer on his gun. Liara stays where she is.

Finally, he ends the conversation with a clipped reply. “I’ll return with T’Soni. Do nothing until then.”

He shifts his weight off of her and gets to his feet in a single fluid motion, keeping his gun pointed directly at her. “There has been a change in plans,” he says. “It seems that your late Ms. Petrovsky’s procedure didn’t quite… take. Something you’ll be rectifying soon enough.”

Liara flinches. “I’ll never help you,” she says. “I’d rather *die*.”

Leng smiles humorlessly. “That can be arranged.” Quick as a whip, he flips the hold on his gun and drives the butt of it hard across her temple. Her head drops to the floor with a thud.

“Women,” he mutters. He stoops down, slinging her over his shoulder like a ragdoll.

He makes his way to his ship, passing the monitors depicting Kaidan and Shepard struggling in the Citadel. As the doors to the airlock shut, he tosses a couple of grenades into the chamber.

“So much for the Shadow Broker.”

 

**XXVIII.**

Kaidan Alenko is many things, but he’s a marine first. His parents taught him compassion, brain camp taught him biotics, but the Alliance taught him to fight, to survive, using any means necessary.

He’s on the floor with Shepard and manages to get an elbow between them, the cuffs making the angle awkward, but the distance gives him enough room to draw his head back. He slams his head as hard as he can into Shepard’s face, hearing the sickening crunch of his nose breaking before throwing his weight to his left side. He’s banking on the fact that the pain will distract Shepard long enough to miss, and when a bolt sizzles past his left side, he knows he’s got his chance.

“Son of a bitch,” Shepard growls, blood coursing down his face, one knee on the ground as he struggles to aim.

Kaidan rolls to his feet and runs for the door, diving behind the couch as the shots start to hone in. He fumbles for the knife tucked into his boot—practically a decoration in the face of today’s arms—braces it between his thighs, and slams the join on the cuffs down into it. It doesn’t break the actual lock, but it damages the circuitry enough to short the technology.

His biotics return with a rush, and he _reaves_ Shepard before rushing at him with the knife. The man’s doubled over as the field goes through his system, and Kaidan’s running on pure instinct. A lesser man would be incapacitated for over ten seconds at least, but Shepard’s straightening in three. He slams the butt of his gun into Kaidan’s jaw just as he brings his knife up, his cuffed hands making the movement awkward, slow.

Shepard brings his gun up to bear, but Kaidan drives a knee into his gut and his shot goes wide. He’s gathering himself for another reave but Shepard drives an elbow across his jaw and follows with a stunning uppercut, and he loses the momentum.

“That’s enough,” Shepard snarls. He’s got the muzzle of his gun pressed to the underside of Kaidan’s chin. “My orders were to bring you in alive, but Leng will settle for a corpse if he has to.”

Kaidan goes still at that, but before he can respond, a shot sizzles past his ear and clips Shepard on the shoulder. He doesn’t even stop to think as he puts up a barrier and throws himself out of Shepard’s space, barely registering that the door to the apartment’s open.

“SPECTRE Alenko, get to cover!” A voice shouts, and Kaidan realizes that someone’s crouched behind the entryway.

“Kox?!” Kaidan almost stops to stare, but a bolt pulverizes the lamp next to his head and he keeps going. Shepard’s living room is a shattered mess by now, with Kox laying down covering fire as Kaidan tries to make it to the door.

They don’t have a lot of time. Whoever’s impersonating Shepard is every bit as good as he was, and while Kaidan’s supposed to be brought in alive, he doubts that the same applies to a random Salarian shopkeeper.

His fears are realized as Shepard pulls out his biotic charge, reappearing in Kox’s space and crushing the Salarian against the wall.

“No!” Kaidan shouts, his _lift_ going wide as Kox crumples to the floor. He’s there in a heartbeat, grabbing Shepard by the scruff of his uniform and trying to bodily haul him off of the motionless Salarian. Shepard’s got a crazed gleam in his eyes, glowing cracks appearing across his jaw. He backhands Kaidan hard across the jaw, dropping his pistol as he gets both hands around the other man’s neck.

“You always did like to do things the hard way,” he breathes, biotics glowing as he lifts the other man off of his feet and slamming him against the wall so hard that his teeth rattle. It’s strangely reminiscent of the beating Kaidan took on Mars, and he claws at the hands around his neck, gasping for breath.

His vision starts to grow dark around the edges, and just when thinks that the last image he has of earth is going to be of Shepard’s insane eyes, a battle cry that he never thought he’d hear again resounds.

“I WILL DESTROY YOU!!”

 

**XXIX.**

The shockwave that Jack sparks cascades across the room, somehow managing to throw Kaidan clear off of Shepard without killing either of them.

“Payback’s a bitch,” Jack snarls, gripping the side of the door with a bloody fist.

Shepard’s stunned and on his back for a good ten seconds, and it allows her to make her way to Kaidan’s side, prodding him with a steel-toed boot. “Get the fuck up,” she hisses. “I can’t take this guy alone.”

He gets to his feet with difficulty, wincing as he sees the amount blood on Jack’s clothing. “You’re injured,” he says. “You shouldn’t be fighting.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” she snaps back, but she lays a hand on his forearm and grips it hard. It’s the only sign of weakness that she shows.

Across the room, Shepard gets to his feet, eyes blazing. “Uh-oh,” Jack says. “Looks like we’ve got some crazy eyes going on. Get ready to party, Alenko.”

“Guess you were a little tougher to put down than I thought,” Shepard says, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Looks like I’ll have to try harder.”

His entire body blazes blue, and Jack and Kaidan ready their barriers. John Shepard had once been one of the most powerful biotics in human history, and with Jack heavily wounded and Kaidan injured, their chances are pretty slim.

Kaidan meets Shepard’s gaze across the room, breath hitching in his chest as he sees the sheer amount of hate burning in the other man’s eyes. Whoever he is— _what_ ever he is—Kaidan knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is _not_ the man he used to love.

The tell-tale whine of Shepard’s biotic charge fills the room, and for brief eternity Kaidan thinks that this is the end. He’s seen John take down brutes at full strength with this move, and two half-dead soldiers aren’t going to prove too difficult for him to fell. Jack’s fingers are like claws but Kaidan doesn’t even register them, and he feels her reinforce his biotics with her own.

The room fills with blue light as Shepard moves, and in the split-second that it takes him to disappear, a high-pitched noise breaks the silence.

“Admiral John Shepard, you are under arrest,” Driix’s voice intones, magnified over several C-Sec vehicles’ speakers. “We have this building surrounded. Come out with your hands up, or we will open fire.”

Shepard bares his teeth, and he pulls back the charge fast enough to use his reserve to release a shockwave instead. He’s not aiming for Kaidan or Jack, but they hit the deck faster then they’d care to admit. It goes through the door and ignites a blast right under one of the C-Sec cars, and it erupts into flames as various officers scatter.

Quick as a whip, Driix gives the command to open fire. In the hail of gunfire, Kaidan makes out Shepard’s face, twisted in hate, as he thumbs the trigger on his cloak and disappears.

***

// _Darkness._  

 _It wraps around him, enveloping him in a curious warmth, and David inclines his head._  

_“Uh, Rebekah? I don’t think it’s working…” He begins, then the socket in the base of his neck tingles as if a jolt of electricity passes through it, and suddenly the rug slips out from under him and he’s falling._

  _Images flutter and flip past him like butterfly wings, each one bearing a fragment of a dream he only half-remembers having. He sees a woman in battle armor, her hair tied in a severe bun on top of her head, and grabs at the memory._

  _“Negative, commander. We’ll never make the rendezvous point in time!” Her voice is tinny, coming over an earpiece, but he can see her face in his mind’s eye. Ashley._

  _“Get them out of there, Joker. Now!” David can see his hands curled into fists, can feel water sloshing at his heels. It isn’t real, he knows it isn’t, but the knowledge doesn’t stop his heart from racing._

  _“Negative! It’s too hot here. We can’t risk it. We’ll hold them off as long as we—“ The line cuts off and David’s heart drops into his stomach._

  _“It’s okay, commander.” He’d know that voice anywhere. He turns, lump in his throat, already knowing who he’s going to find._

  _“We need a few more minutes here—go up and get them,” Kaidan says, crouched over a large metal cylinder. He looks younger than he did when David met him, his hair not yet dusted with grey. He has a bad feeling about this, but he’s a passenger in this memory, experiencing it with a body that isn’t his own. He can do nothing but watch._

  _“Let’s go,” he barks, turning. There’s an Asari and a Turian standing there, and they follow him without question. They fight off hordes of what look like Geth, making their way up to a tower. They’re on a bridge, feet pounding across metal, when Kaidan’s call brings them up short._

  _“There’s Geth pouring out all over the bomb site, commander! I don’t think we can survive until you get back.”_

  _David’s hand comes up to grip his earpiece, signaling at his squad to halt. “How bad is it?”_

  _There’s a burst of static, then: “I’m activating the bomb. It has to go off—no matter what.”_

  _“Alenko—“ David’s already halfway back to the elevator before he even registers his feet moving._

  _“It’s done, commander. Go get Williams and get the hell out of here.”_  

_“Screw that!” Ashley’s voice cuts in. “We can handle ourselves. Go back and get Alenko!”_

  _There’s a cold sweat on the back of his neck, and even though David knows how this is going to end, he still prays to every deity he knows. /Save Kaidan./_

  _He slams a fist into a nearby bulkhead. “Alenko, radio Joker and tell him to meet us at the bomb site.”_

  _Kaidan’s voice is thin. “Yes, commander. I…”_  

_“You know it’s the right choice, LT,” Ashely says, voice firm. David’s heart goes out to her—just another marine giving up her life for the Alliance to him, but somehow he knows she’s so much more. Bile rises in his throat, but the man he inhabits just nods tersely._

  _“I’m sorry, Ash. I had to make a choice.”_  

_“I understand, commander. I don’t regret a thing.”_

  _He’s pulled out of the memory as he enters the elevator, spiraling into an abyss that feels entirely manufactured. His limbs are heavy and weighted, the tingle at the base of his neck blossoming into something close to pain._

  _Slowly, inexorably, he is pulled from the abyss. He can feel the texture of Rebekah’s couch under his palms, he can hear someone shouting (Rebekah?), and the unmistakable sound of a blade being pulled from its sheathe._

  _David wills his eyes to open, and the first thing he sees is his own face._  

_“Awake?” The doppelganger asks, shining a light into his eyes. David blinks furiously, willing himself to get up, to get away, but his limbs are deadweight beneath him._

  _A voice, tinny and low, comes through the other man’s omnitool. “It’s too soon. Cut him loose.”_

  _The man laughs harshly. “You’ve got to be joking,” he says. “The procedure’s already begun; if he remembers who he is before I can collect him—“_

  _“Put him to bed and leave the rest to me,” the voice interrupts coldly. “Then clean the rest of them up. But remember—I want Alenko alive.”_

  _“Understood.” David tries to move his head away as the other man steps towards him, producing a syringe from a pouch at his belt._

  _The new angle provides him a view of the floor ahead, and he can make out two slumped shapes. Rebekah, then, and a man. Her brother, perhaps? He can only hope that the boy, Rebekah’s young son, is still safe somewhere. Hiding._

  _He hisses as a sharp pain jabs at his neck, and he bares his teeth in frustration at the murderer wearing his own face. The other man’s eyes are chips of ice._

  _“Sleep.”_ //

 

**XXX.**

“David?”

There’s a hand on his face, prodding gently at a rapidly swelling bruise under his left eye. David groans, twitching away from the ministration.

“Go ‘way…” he mumbles. The beating that the doctor’s goon had given him earlier has had time to set by now, and there isn’t a part of his body that doesn’t ache. “Wan’ sleep…”

“David, wake up.” The voice is soft but insistent, but it’s the familiarity of it that makes him open his eyes. There’s an Asari looking worriedly at him, her soft hands deftly examining the injuries across his body.

“Do you remember who I am?” she asks, and smiles slightly at his confused expression.

“No, of course you don’t. Otherwise Leng wouldn’t have seen fit to bring me here,” she murmurs. “My name is Liara T’Soni.”

“Right,” David mutters. “I’d shake your hand, but…” In spite of himself, he manages a shrug.

“It’s good to see that your positive attitude remains intact,” Liara says dryly. She sits back on her heels, hands twisting nervously on her lap. “I don’t know how much time we have together before Kai Leng comes back, but I want you to know…”

She meets his eyes, trying in vain to search for the man she once knew. “I am sorry for everything,” she says. “And I will do everything in my power to ensure that he does not harm you further.”

There’s a noise in the distance, and Liara shakes her head. “We don’t have a lot of time,” she says. “But please, no matter what happens—whatever they ask you, whatever they tell you, deny everything. Right now, your ignorance is the only thing keeping you alive.”

The door slides open before David gets the chance to reply. Three men walk into the room, and while David’s mouth twists in distaste when he sees Wilson and his trigger-happy guard, it’s the stranger who commands his attention. _Kai Leng_ , his mind supplies helpfully, but he doesn’t quite know if it’s a lucky guess or something else entirely.

“You’ve brought a friend.” He quirks an eyebrow in Wilson’s direction. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be,” Wilson replies, but it’s Kai Leng who walks forward, extending a hand to David’s bruised jaw.

“Do you know who I am?” he asks. Leng’s eyes are fathomless behind his mask, and David squints up at him, pursing his lips.

“Why do people keep asking me that? I thought I made it pretty clear to your buddy over there that you’ve got the wrong man. A mug as ugly as yours isn’t really something a guy forge—“

He’s got a fresh bruise on his jaw before he even gets to finish the sentence, and the military grunt steps back, cracking his knuckles.

Kai Leng smiles thinly. “I don’t remember him being quite so… mouthy,” he muses, before turning to Liara. “Doctor T’Soni, you and I both know who this man is, but Mr. Anderson seems to be quite in the dark.”

He gestures to the guard, who then grabs Liara by the arm and forces her to her knees. “If you would be so kind as to help us enlighten him?”

Liara raises her chin. “I’ll never help you,” she spits out.

“We have all of your equipment ready, salvaged from Petrovsky’s apartment,” Leng continues as if she hadn’t spoken. “All that’s left is the access codes, and if you give them to me…”

He reaches out, running his palm over the join between her shoulder and back. “I can promise you a quick death.” He smiles. “If you do not cooperate, however…”

There’s a sickening pop as he applies pressure in precisely the right place, and Liara screams as her arm drops lifelessly to her side.

“You bastard!” David growls, struggling furiously at his bonds. The metal cuffs break the skin on his wrists but he doesn’t even notice, focused intently on the writhing Asari.

“I’ll make it last,” Kai Leng finishes. He pins David with a look, his mouth stretched in a parody of a smile. “It’s a pity, really. I was hoping to have a few more pelts under my belt before the main event, but some of your friends proved harder to kill than I thought.”

He leans down to cup Liara’s jaw in his palm. She flinches, desperately trying to move away, but the guard holds her fast.

“Now… about those codes.”

***

Kaidan grips Jack’s arm as the C-Sec officers load her onto a stretcher. “You lost a lot of blood,” he says. “They need to bring you to the hospital to fix you up. I’ll be by as soon as I can.”

“Sc-screw that,” Jack hisses, shrugging him off. “I’m going with you, Alenko. I have a score to settle with that imposter!”

She tries to sit up, but the Salarian EMT plants a firm hand on her shoulder and pushes her back onto the gurney. “Please calm down, professor Nought,” he says. “Your injuries are extensive; we need to get you to the hospital as soon as possible!”

“He’s right, Jack,” Kaidan says. “Just… just leave the admiral to me, okay? I’ll find him.”

Another med tech, a human woman, approaches before Jack can answer. “SPECTRE Alenko, the Salarian is asking for you,” she says. “He doesn’t have a lot of time, so please be quick.”

“I’ll talk to you at the hospital, Jack. Be safe.” Kaidan walks away as Jack is loaded into the ambulance. He hears her shouting for a comm device as the doors close, and he allows himself the small relief of knowing that she’ll be all right.

The woman leads him to the second ambulance, where Kox is in distinctly worse shape. He’s breathing shallowly, an array of tubes attached to his wrists.

“You saved my life,” Kaidan says, taking a knee beside him. “How did you know…?”

“No time…” Kox says. “Things not… what they seem. David… you must… save him…”

“David…?” Kaidan repeats. “What’s happened to him? How is he mixed up in all of this?”

Kox reaches out, gripping Kaidan’s wrist. “David... my responsibility… I failed,” Kox manages. “Shadow Broker couldn’t… stop… He was taken… before I could return him… Spies everywhere… can’t trust anyone…”

“Who took him?” Kaidan asks urgently. “Was it Leng?”

Kox shoulders hunch, shaking as he gasps for breath. The med tech steps forward, pulling at Kaidan’s arm. “Just a few more seconds!” he says. “Come on, Kox, give me something!”

“Y-yes… Leng…” Kox breathes. “Another operative… dead now… transmitted location before… Don’t trust… Give me your… omni…”

Kaidan activates the device, holding it out as Kox transfers the data from his own tool. “Thank you,” he breathes. “I’ll take care of it, Kox. I’ll save him.”

“And the Shadow Broker…” Kox manages, as the tech shoves Kaidan out of the way. “Please… hurry…”

 _Liara._ “I will,” Kaidan says. “I’ll save them all, Kox. I promise.”

“That’s enough,” the tech bites, pushing him out of the ambulance. “We’ve got to go, SPECTRE.”

Kaidan steps back out into the street, watching as the doors slam shut and they take off into the sky. Another tech approaches, holding out medigel for his myriad of injuries.

“Thanks,” he mutters. His mind is racing at a mile a minute and he can’t even begin to process what’s happened, but there is one thing that he knows for sure. David is in danger, and he needs to find him.

He calls up the coordinates on his omni-tool, eyes narrowing when he recognizes a star cluster within the Athena Nebula. The area space indicated is large, almost the size of a space station, and he has a sinking feeling when he realizes the amount of firepower it likely houses.

Still, he’ll need a ship for the mission, better than what he currently has at his disposal, and he knows the perfect captain for the job.


	7. Chapter 7

**XXXI.**

In her brief lifetime, EDI has experienced things that most sentient lifeforms would take decades to live through. Indeed, the ones that do experience them often remain scarred for years afterwards, requiring resources and therapy and down time to find equilibrium.

EDI requires none of these things. She knows that many of her crew think her cold, but she considers herself a pragmatist. She has fought and loved and lost just the same as the rest of the officers beneath her, but she does not feel the need to show these… emotions… to her crew.

Only Jeff, in their moments of brief respite, is privy to her humor, her sadness, and, at times, her anger. These moments are fewer and far between nowadays, and this is why, when she gets the call from SPECTRE Alenko, even Jeff is surprised at her reaction.

“All hands, full stop,” EDI says, palms flat on the console before her. The starmap opens up before her, and every head on the deck swings toward her.

“Captain? Is something the matter?” Lieutenant Matthews rises from his station even as Jeff’s fingers dance over the controls, bringing the Valiant to a halt.

EDI takes a (non-existent) breath, gaze sweeping across the deck. “All hands: this is the captain speaking,” she says. Her voice echoes across the corridors of her ship, and crewmen slow to a halt to listen. “We are not proceeding to our mission on Feros. We are returning to the Citadel, where we will collect SPECTRE Kaidan Alenko and continue on another mission.”

“This mission is classified as of the moment, and is highly dangerous,” she says, pausing. Her hands are clenched into fists before her, and she forces herself to keep her voice steady. “This vessel is not a ship of war. We are primarily dedicated to exploration and to give aid when necessary, and I am aware that many of you are on your first tour. That said: I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished as a ship in the past year, and I am certain that you will behave admirably in the coming hours.”

She nods to the comm specialist to kill the feed, and heads to Jeff’s side. “ETA to the closest relay?”

“Forty-five minutes, twelve seconds, Captain,” Joker says. “Plotting the jump to the Citadel, now.”

“Excellent. Have specialist Carrera kill all communications from now on,” she says. “We’re going dark until we reach the Citadel.”

Joker raises a brow even as he sends the command. “You okay?” he asks, lowering his voice. “You look like you just went three rounds with a brute.”

“We will be venturing into a hot zone with the equivalent of a BB gun and bubble wrap,” EDI replies, likewise lowering her voice. “That is an appropriate reaction, Jeffrey.”

“Jeez, you’d think Kaidan would commandeer a bigger ship for a mission like that,” Jeff mutters. “Why’d he pick us?”

“He implied that there is an information leak within the ranks,” EDI replies quietly. “If he were to commandeer the necessary fire power, it would take both time he does not have and clearance with three levels of command above him.”

She puts a hand on his shoulder. “This mission is not… entirely official, Jeffrey,” she says. “And it has something to do with Admiral Shepard. If you wish to file a complaint, do so and I will log your formal objection. If things go awry and I am court-martialed after the events of this mission, doing so now will allow you to keep your rank. ”

Joker shakes his head. “Never. I’m with you to the end, EDI.”

He squeezes her hand, then smiles impishly. “I gotta say, this whole ‘grim determination’ thing is really hot, captain.”

In spite of herself, EDI smiles back.

***

T’Soni’s screams have almost died down completely by now, and all that’s left is a periodic whimper. Leng’s mouth twists as he wipes the blood off of his knuckles; she refuses to break, and his patience is wearing thin.

“Why do you protect him so?” he asks, kneeling beside her. The guards stationed at the door shift restlessly; he’s been at this for hours. “He let Thessia burn. You owe him nothing.”

“What happened to Thessia… the Reapers did that. And Cerberus,” Liara replies. “I vowed… to keep Shepard safe. I… _will_ keep him safe…”

“Even at the expense of your life?”

Liara manages a chuckle. “You… you’ll kill me anyway,” she says. “Fast or slow… it is all the same…”

Leng shakes his head. “The code, Doctor T’Soni,” he says, walking over to his side-table. There are a myriad of blood-stained tools there, each sharper than the last. He runs his finger against the handle of a particularly long piece, with a serrated edge. “Give me the code and bring your suffering to an end.”

“Never.”

Leng’s advance is interrupted by the doors sliding open, and he raises an eyebrow at Wilson. “Come to join in the fun, good doctor?”

Wilson shakes his head. “You asked to be informed when he returned, sir,” he says. “He’s waiting for you in the hall.”

Leng nods. “You’ll have to excuse me,” he says, inclining his head at Liara. “I have pressing matters to attend to.”

He palms the door panel and heads out with Wilson, leaving the guards where they are. Let them have their fun; they so rarely get entertainment in such a remote location, and Asari are few and far between nowadays.

“Took you long enough.” Shepard’s leaning against the far wall, half-cloaked in shadows. His face is glowing faintly with red-orange cracks, and Leng raises a brow.

“Trouble, admiral?” he asks.

“You could say that,” Shepard replies. “Alenko got away. Thought I got that bitch, Jack, but turns out she’s still alive, too.”

Leng bares his teeth. “So you’ve returned with *nothing*?” he growls. “The great admiral Shepard, bested by a Biotic bitch and a boy scout?”

“Shadow Broker’s agent was there too,” Shepard mutters, turning his head. “And then C-Sec and the SPECTREs showed up. I had to get out of there.”

“You blew your cover,” Leng says. “You blew your cover and have nothing to show for it. Need I remind you that without Alenko, all of this means *nothing*?”

Shepard smiles. “Maybe not,” he says. “You have the one thing that Alenko wants, remember? And I’m willing to bet that _he’s_ going to be coming to _you_ soon enough.”

“Perhaps sooner than you think,” Leng says, pausing. “One of our operatives within the Citadel reported an information breach several hours ago—they killed the agent, but not before he managed to transmit the base’s location.”

“Then he probably won’t be far behind me,” Shepard says. “He’s nothing if not stubborn.”

“We should prepare to evacuate the station!” Wilson interrupts, bringing up his omni-tool. “However fortified this base is, it cannot withstand an assault from the Alliance!”

Leng smiles thinly. “Except that we have eyes and ears within the citadel, and there have been no reports of their troops being mobilized,” he says. “It seems that our mister Alenko is running a rogue operation, here…”

“But why would he do that?” Wilson asks, perplexed. “Surely he realizes that the amount of fire power he’d need to storm the base would be substantial--?”

“Emotion makes people do stupid things, doctor,” Leng replies. “Anderson has been missing for hours and Alenko has just learned of my existence. Clearly he fears that we would kill Anderson before he has time to mobilize the Alliance.”

“Indeed, a precision strike—a single squad using stealth and cunning—has accomplished much in the history of warfare,” Leng continues. “As present company can attest.”

“Unfortunately for him,” Shepard says, hand straying to the weapon on his hip. “I practically wrote the book on it.”

Leng’s eyes are chips of ice. “Knowledge that we will now put to good use.”

 

**XXXII.**

“SPECTRE Alenko, we’re about to exit the relay.” The comm at Kaidan’s side comes to life with a crackle of static, jolting him from his thoughts.

He’s perched at the edge of the couch in the Valiant’s starboard observation room, running through the data on his omni-tool. There isn’t a lot of information on the file that Kox transferred to him—the area space, a bit of the floor plan, and some half-uploaded blueprints—but he’s committed what’s there to memory.

“How’s it look out there, EDI?” he asks. He’s already in his armor; he hasn’t had to put it on in almost a year, but some things are impossible to forget.

“Nothing on long-range sensors, sir,” EDI replies. “It would appear that they do not know we are coming.”

“If only we could be so lucky,” Kaidan mutters under his breath. If he could have a credit for every “surprise” mission that turned out to be a trap, he’d be a rich man by now. “I’ll be on the bridge in five.”

“Aye, sir.”

He heads out of the room, startling a passing crewman. “At ease, lieutenant,” he says, waving away the young woman’s salute. His eyes fall on the suitcase that she’s holding—a sleek, sturdy-looking thing—and he smiles.

“Are you heading to the armory?” he asks.

“Yes, sir,” she says. “I was just on my way to secure these.”

Kaidan steps aside, gesturing forward. “Lead the way, lieutenant.”

***

“How is the approach looking, Jeffrey?” EDI crosses her arms over her chest and endeavors to remember to blink periodically. She’s observed a spike in her popularity with the crew since her last ship-wide announcement, with the exception of a yeoman who mentioned that EDI still gave her the creeps because she didn’t blink enough.

“It’s quiet, captain,” Joker replies. “A little too quiet, if you ask me.”

“You have adjusted our flight pattern so that we approach them from beneath,” EDI says. “Perhaps their patrol ships are merely… _patrolling._ ”

Joker makes a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. “Right.”

The Cerberus base isn’t close enough for a visual yet, but Joker calls up the sensor screen and the bridge crew watches as they near the little red blip. The base is hidden in a sprawling asteroid belt with plenty of places that would make great cover, and while this is great for small ships looking to sneak in, it’s terrible for detecting approaching threats.

“Hang on, I’m getting something,” Joker says, tapping a few keys and focusing on a region of space on their starboard side. A small blue blip appears, indicating a possible ship, then disappears just as quickly.

“Could just be a glitch,” Carrera pipes up from behind him. “I’m getting a lot of interference from the asteroids.”

“Too much of a coincidence,” Joker mutters. He glances at EDI, raising a brow. “Evasive maneuvers?”

Before she can reply, Smith looks up. “We’ve got a visual on the base, captain!”

“On screen and magnify,” EDI says. “Keep an eye on the quadrant where the anomaly was situated, Carrera.”

Joker puts the starfield back on screen, and everyone gets a good look at the Ceberus base. EDI’s known the floor plan since Kaidan arrived, but even she has to admit that the scale of it is breath-taking. It’s built partially on top of one of the larger asteroids, menacing-looking struts jutting out from every direction. Intellectually, she knows that each arm serves as a docking port, but she can’t contain the shudder that passes through her spine. It almost looks like it’s reaching out to them.

“Captain—the anomaly has returned!” Carrera’s shout breaks the spell, and EDI glances down at Jeff’s auxiliary screen. The blue blip has returned, and it appears to be situated behind one of the smaller asteroids. Almost like it’s… hiding.

“Evasive maneuvers!” EDI tells Jeff, and the Valiant goes into a dive as he brings them out of their approach.

As soon as they break from their path, more blue blips appear on the scanners. There are six—no, seven—ships, and they’re all making a beeline for the Valiant.

“Orders, captain?” Joker asks through gritted teeth, the entire ship shaking as he dodges and weaves them through asteroids.

EDI reaches out, gripping his shoulder.

“Get us to that base in one piece!”

 

**XXXIII.**

By the time Alenko gets to the bridge, they’re in the middle of a full-scale fire fight.

He feels the hull shudder when he’s in the elevator, and it’s only the fact that his armor has zero-G safeties on that prevents him from smashing his head into the ceiling when the ship goes into a dive.

“Report, captain!” He calls out, staggering out onto the deck. The view screen is alive with laser fire, and Jeff seems to be taking them through the most dangerous approach possible.

“We are preparing for an emergency drop into the base,” EDI says. “I strongly recommend heading to the launch bay, SPECTRE Alenko. I and our chief armory officer will join you there shortly.”

“Understood,” Kaidan replies, turning to the pilot at her side. “Good luck, Joker.”

“You too, sir,” Joker says. Sweat is beading on his forehead and his fingers are flying over the controls. It reminds Kaidan of Earth four years ago, ( _when you lost John_ , a little voice in his mind supplies), but he forces himself to put it out of his mind.

David’s still alive. He has to believe it.

He hightails it to the elevator and gets to the launch pad in record time, but the armory officer is already there.

“SPECTRE Alenko,” he says, saluting. “The name’s Starsmore.”

And Kaidan’ll eat his hat if the kid isn’t more than twenty-two. EDI hadn’t been joking when she said that her crew complement was so green it was practically a vegetable farm. “At ease,” he says, returning the lieutenant’s salute. “Have you read the mission brief?”

“Yes sir,” replies Starsmore promptly, smirking. “Get in, find the two hostages, and get out. Easy-peasy.”

Kaidan shakes his head. “Listen, kid,” he says. “These Cerberus guys—they aren’t kidding around. I’ve seen these bastards do things to people that would make you want to run home back to your mom. This isn’t a drill, and it sure as hell isn’t a training session—overconfidence will _kill_ you.”

EDI arrives before Starsmore can reply, and she makes a beeline towards the Kodiak. “We do not have much time,” she says, snapping her pistols to the back of her belt. “Jeffrey will attempt to bring us as close as possible to one of the docking arms. The Kodiak’s shielding won’t hold up against a fighter’s weaponry, but the debris should hide us long enough for the lieutenant to make the drop.”

Her eyes flick to the approaching pilot, a nervous young woman with blond hair. “Are you up for this, Nici?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the lieutenant replies. “I was born to do this.”

She pulls open the door and heads to her seat, the rest of them following close behind. Kaidan takes a seat beside EDI, buckling himself in. Joker’s voice trickles in from the comm unit next to him.

“Get ready, Nici,” he shouts, trying to make himself heard over the excitement on the bridge. “I’m opening the shuttle bay doors in five… four… three… two…”

There’s the sound of clanging metal, followed by the Kodiak’s thrusters lifting off and hurling them into space. Kaidan watches as Nici barely dodges an oncoming asteroid, the debris nicking the hull.

“Easy, lieutenant,” EDI says, getting up. “Jeffrey, what is the Valiant’s status?”

“It doesn’t look like they spotted you,” Joker says, voice tinny over the static. “We’re leading them away, captain!”

“Good work, Jeff,” EDI says. “Retreat to a safe distance; we’ll contact you once we’ve extracted David and Liara.”

The Valiant had done its job; Kaidan can see that they’re practically within spitting distance from the nearest docking arms, and all Nici has to do is bring the Kodiak in nice and easy. His heartbeat quickens as he watches the arm loom closer, and finally there is the distinct sound of metal magnetizing to the hatch.

“I’ll need a moment,” EDI says, fingers flying over the console in front of her. “I need to hack into the docking mechanism so it will let us board.”

“We may not have moment, captain,” Nici says. She shoots a frightened glance at Kaidan as she calls the sensor up on the main screen. “I think they spotted us; some of the fighters are breaking off pursuit of the Valiant and are heading our way...”

“Jeffrey—“

“We saw them, captain.” Joker’s voice comes back on with a burst of static. “We’re heading back, but the fighters aren’t making it easy!”

“Divert all power to shields, lieutenant,” EDI calls. “I only need a few more…”

The Kodiak shudders violently as the fighters come within range, peppering the hull with shots. “Captain, we can’t take much more of this!” Nici says. She can’t do much more than keep the Kodiak steady as EDI works at opening the latch.

“Nici, pull up your divider. Starsmore, Alenko—put your helmets on!” EDI snaps, and Kaidan and the lieutenant hurry to comply. “There is no time to initiate the tube’s docking sequence; I can get it open, but we’ll have to space walk in.”

“They’re coming around for another pass,” Nici shouts, trying to make herself heard through the thick plexiglass. She can’t complain, though—the divider between pilot and cargo is the only thing that stands between her and sucking vacuum in about thirty seconds. “Shields at thirty percent and dropping!”

EDI pops the hatch just as the fighters come into range, and Kaidan holds his breath as everything inside the Kodiak that isn’t nailed down floats up. He sees the laser from the fighter’s canon light a red streak across space, and he holds his breath as it smashes into the docking arm. It misses the Kodiak by a handful of feet, and Kaidan watches in horror as the resulting explosion separates the magnetic hold.

The Kodiak begins to drift away, and Kaidan knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re not going to get another shot at this. He pulls Starsmore away from the door, flicking the switch on his comm.

“SPECTRE, we have to abort!” EDI shouts. “You’ll never make the jump!”

“I have to try, EDI!” Kaidan shouts back. He’s already thumbing open the panel on his anti-grav boots. “I can’t leave him!”

Another explosion rocks the transport, and this time the Kodiak’s power goes completely dark. EDI bares her teeth, and just as Kaidan pushes off from the back wall, she grabs him by the neck of his armor, hurling him across the chasm. Her superior strength gives him the momentum he needs to cross the length of space, and he manages to snag some tubing and pull himself into the ruptured tunnel.

With an ear-piercing shriek, the doors to the Kodiak give way completely, and EDI barely manages to grab Starsmore before he’s sucked into space. The Valiant streaks into view just as the fighters let loose another barrage of firepower, but thanks to Joker’s maneuvering, they’re able to take the brunt of the blast.

“EDI, I’m inside,” Kaidan says, breathing heavily. “Get back to the Valiant and retreat to a safe distance; there’s nothing more you can do, here!”

He magnetizes his boots again and makes his way to the entry hatch, feeling beads of sweat roll down his spine. He’d been counting on EDI and Starsmore as backup, but now he’s not sure how he’s going to get two (very likely) injured people out of this base.

“One thing at a time, Alenko,” he mutters to himself. “Keep your head in the game.” It doesn’t take much for him to bypass the controls, and the doors to the decon chamber hiss open. Once inside, he pulls off his helmet and breathes in deep lungfuls of processed air.

“Find David,” he says. “Then Liara. Then out.”

He pulls out his gun from its holster, palming the door panel. The doors slide quietly open, and as there are no troops waiting on the other side, he can almost count it as a win.

 

**XXXIV.**

He finds Liara first.

Kaidan doesn’t mean to, but he follows the schematics on his omni-tool and finds his way to the closest holding cell. There are guards outside and inside, but Kaidan manages to dispatch them—quietly and efficiently—with a few well-placed biotic lifts.

Liara’s curled up in the corner of the cell, which is why he doesn’t see the extent of her injuries at first. But as he finishes pulling the guards’ bodies into the room, he realizes that she isn’t unconscious, as he’d first thought.

She whimpers as he approaches, trying to retreat further into her cell. “No… more…” she whispers, trembling as she hides her face behind her hands. “Please…”

It’s been years since he’d last seen her and they’d _all_ been pretty messed up after the Reaper war, but this… Kaidan tries to swallow past the lump in his throat as he drops down beside her. “Liara… it’s Kaidan,” he says. “I’m going to get you out of here, all right?”

“K-Kaidan…?” She shivers almost unconsciously, refusing to look up. “Kaidan’s dead. Or he’s going to be… Soon. Leng… Leng is going to kill us all…”

“Not if I can help it,” Alenko replies, gritting his teeth. Kai Leng. He’s never felt the urge to kill anyone more than he does right now, and it takes no small effort to soften his voice. “I swear, Liara, I will get you out of here. And David, too.”

“David…?” The name seems to rouse her, and she lifts her head long enough to look blearily into his face. “Kaidan…!”

She moves forward sluggishly, and Kaidan manages to catch her in his arms. Her side is completely covered in blood, and one of her arms is hanging lifelessly at her side. Her face, once so lovely, is a myriad of bruises. Kaidan’s gut clenches in anger.

“I am so sorry,” she says, hiding her face in his chest. “All of it is my fault… I should never have…!”

“Liara, slow down,” Kaidan says, awkwardly trying to adjust his grip. He doesn’t think there’s any part of her that isn’t injured, and he doesn’t want to damage her further. “What are you talking about?”

She looks up, her blue eyes bright with unshed tears. “David,” she says. “It’s my fault that he’s here…!”

Kaidan goes very still at that, and he has to fight to keep his voice even. “Tell me,” he says. “Tell me everything.”

Liara lets out a whimper, shaking her head. “I-I found him,” she admits, fingers digging into this wrists. “After the Citadel blew, I found him… and he wasn’t breathing, but I couldn’t just leave him there… When my agents came, they took him with us… I made th-them… I couldn’t just… let him die…’

‘And it took years… All my resources, everything I had… went to bringing him back…” Her voice trails off, and she shakes her head. “We got his body… His body was working, breathing, but his mind… There was so much damage… He’d been dead too long… so we had to…”

Kaidan’s mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. She isn’t talking about _David_. She can’t be.

“What did you _do_ , Liara?” His voice breaks at the last.

“I—I gave him what I thought he wanted…” she replies. “When I found him four years ago… he wouldn’t let go of Anderson’s tags. His heart stopped twice, but he wouldn’t let go… I couldn’t bear to take that away from him, so I gave him his name… Then I… I left him on Mindoir with all the right memories of growing up there, happy. I… wanted him to live a full life… A happy life.’

‘I should have known it wouldn’t have been either… if he didn’t have you.” She dares to meet Kaidan’s eyes, flinches when she sees his expression. “He hadn’t even been there two weeks when he said he was going to the Citadel… The operatives I had stationed… playing his parents… they had no choice. They let him go.”

“But I watched over him,” she continues, voice breaking. “Even when he decided to go back to the Citadel… I made sure he wasn’t caught… I made sure he’d be okay. Hacked the records, got him in. He’s nobody now, just another man. I just… I wanted him to be happy…”

“How did Kai Leng find him?” Kaidan asks, trying to talk past the lump in his throat. His heart is beating like a trip hammer. Shepard. David. Shepard. _David._

“He- he just knew,” Liara says, shaking her head. “Every move I made, he was… a step ahead. He’s dangerous, Kaidan… he’s been planning this for a very long time...”

She bites her lip. “David’s… starting to remember who he is. Rebekah’s procedure was supposed to help him get it all back, but the clone… interrupted him. He’s not right… he’s confused right now… You need to find him, get him out of here.”

 _Focus on the present._ Kaidan sets his jaw, nods. “Do you know where he is?”

“Yes, they’re keeping him in another holding cell… not far from here,” Liara manages. “I’ll tell you where… but I can’t go with you. I can barely walk… I’ll only slow you down.”

“Not an option,” Kaidan says shortly. He reaches out to touch her, frowning when she shies from his grip. “You brought him back, Liara. For that alone, I owe you everything.”

He gets his arms underneath her and lifts her easily, standing. “We’re all getting out of here together… you and me and David,” he continues, and she puts her one good arm around his neck. “And after that, we’re all going to sit down and have a nice, long talk.”

***

“Kill them all.” Kai Leng stares dispassionately at the view screen, fingers drumming idly on his arm rest. The Valiant maneuvers well in the asteroid field, but it’s only a matter of time before the Cerberus fighters catch up to them.

“Fighters are in pursuit,” Shepard says. “But the Valiant’s flying well. There’s a chance they’ll make it out of range. Should I send another squad to help?”

“Send two,” Leng replies. He unsheathes the blade at his side, running a thumb against the flat of it. “What is Alenko’s status?”

“Nearing Anderson’s holding cell,” Shepard replies. He pushes back from his console and stands, clearly spoiling for a fight. The rest of the command crew works silently around them; they’d long since learned not to distract Leng when he was in a mood. “How far do you plan to allow him to get, exactly?”

“Far enough,” Leng replies shortly. “Do not move to intercept them until I tell you to do so.”

The admiral growls, low and in the back of his throat. “I don’t see why we can’t just get rid of them now,” he bites. “T’Soni’s never going to break—there’s no chance that you’ll retrieve his memory.”

Leng smiles coldly. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he says. “Anderson may not know or care about Shepard’s other companions, but both of them are… _fond_ … of Kaidan Alenko.”

“Let him find Anderson,” he continues. “Let them have their reunion. Giving them a taste of hope… will make breaking them so much sweeter.”

 

**XXXV.**

“Something is wrong.”

Liara tugs at Kaidan’s collar, urging him to stop. He does so, ducking behind a large bulkhead and setting her on the ground. “Did you see something?” he asks, double-checking the ammo on his gun.

“There is no one here,” Liara says. “We have not yet come across a single guard—surely this must seem suspicious to you?”

“Hey, I had to put down four guys to get to you,” Kaidan protests. “There were a lot of fighters after the Valiant earlier—maybe the support staff’s on the command deck. Cerberus isn’t nearly as popular as it used to be.”

Liara sighs, rubbing her temples. “I just… Be careful,” she says. “David is being held in the cell just around the corner… Leng will pull all the guards from the bridge before he leaves him unguarded. Leave me here while you dispatch them.”

“I can’t just—“ Kaidan begins, but the doctor waves him off.

“You will fight better without me clinging to your neck,” she says. “Just go… I will be fine alone for a few minutes. Please. We do not have much time.”

“All… all right,” says Kaidan. “I’ll be right back, Liara. Stay safe.”

He takes a breath, readying himself as he creeps down the brightly-lit corridor. It isn’t long before he can hear the low murmur of indistinct voices, and he takes a knee as he peers behind the bend. There are two guards there, commandos by the look of them, and he’d bet his life that there are two more inside the holding room.

His lip twists. “Biotics it is, then,” he mutters.

His _lift_ takes them completely by surprise, but he doesn’t count on the holding room’s doors sliding open just as he closes in to finish them off. The third guard manages to squeeze a round off, but the shot goes wide, tagging Kaidan on the shoulder. His armor takes most of the damage, and he elbows the man viciously across the face, blood spurting as his head knocks back with the force of the blow.

“Hey!” There’s a fourth man inside the room, and he scrabbles for the weapon on his lap as Kaidan advances. His biotics flare as he hurls a _reave_ at him, and he spins around just in time to catch the previous guard’s attack.

The man’s face is a bloody mess and he relies completely on his larger mass to smash Kaidan against the nearest wall, his fingers curled around the biotic’s throat. “All outta juice?” he snarls. “Game on, asshole!”

Kaidan gasps for breath, one hand curled around the man’s forearm and his other slapping at the pistol at his waist. “O-out of juice,” he wheezes, hooking his finger into the trigger. “Still got… plenty of bullets, though!”

The weapon fires at point blank range, catching the man in the gut. He lets out a wet gurgle before pitching forward, taking Kaidan with him as he slides to the floor.

“’m getting too old for this…” Kaidan mutters, taking in a deep lungful of air. He shoves the dead man off of himself, raising his head to survey the room.

The three other guards have been successfully dispatched by his biotics, and he pulls himself up and drags them in from the corridor. The two guards he’d lifted before are merely unconscious, and he slaps their own cuffs on them and leaves them on the floor. A quick search of the fourth guard produces a key card, and he pulls it off of its chain around his neck.

He makes his way to the row of cells lining the far wall, slipping the key card into the slot on the first door. The cell isn’t much— it’s just a few feet wide and completely dark, and it takes his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dimness.

“Dear god.” Kaidan’s heart freezes in his chest when he _sees_ him—head bowed and cuffed to a chair.

“David…” he breathes, sinking to his knees before him. “David, wake up.”

He cups David’s cold face in his hands, shaking as he sees the bruises on his body, the blood from his wounds.

“Please, please be alive,” he whispers, and he doesn’t care if the man in front of him is David Anderson or John Shepard, it’s the only thought in his mind. “Please…”

A faint breath tickles his cheek, and a single bruised eye cracks open. “Wh-who’s…? Kaidan?” David mumbles. “’s that you?”

“David!” He could almost weep at the relief that floods through him, and he moves forward to rest his forehead against the other man’s. “You’re safe now… I’ve come to get you.”

David’s eyes are cloudy, but he cracks a small, crooked grin. “Knew you would,” he whispers. “Took you… a little longer than I was hoping, though…”

Kaidan exhales softly, letting out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. “Traffic on the skyway,” he says, and David lets out a small, pained chuckle.

Kaidan pulls a vibroblade out of his boot, tip glowing as he flicks the switch. “Hold still, okay?”

Metal clangs to the floor as David’s cuffs drop off, and Kaidan gently helps him to his feet. “I’ve got Liara outside, too,” he says. “Can you walk?”

“Sure,” David says, wincing a little as he takes a step. “I think most of the damage is cosmetic… Guess I’m a lot tougher than I look, huh?”

Kaidan grips his arm as they move out of the cell, wincing as he sees the damage under harsh fluorescents. “Joker and EDI are keeping the fighters occupied, and we need to find a ship so we can rendezvous with them,” he says. “I have the schematics of the station, and if we can just get to the main hangar without alerting the whole base—”

“Kaidan…!” David’s steps falter as they near the door, and Kaidan barely catches him before he crashes into the floor.

“David—what’s wrong?” Kaidan asks. He has his arms wrapped around David, trying to secure him as he shudders violently, gripping his forehead.

“I think… I think they gave me something…” David manages through gritted teeth. “My… head feels like it’s on _fire_ \--!”

“A neuro-stimulant,” Liara says, and Kaidan looks up to find her clinging to the doorway. “They’re trying to help him remember something… without my access codes, this was their next logical action.”

“I told you to stay where you were!” Kaidan says, caught between holding David up and going over to assist her.

“I am… able to walk,” Liara says. She closes her eyes briefly, forcing a smile. “You need to get to the docking bay, SPECTRE Alenko. I will find a comm station… and radio the Valiant to return.”

“Like hell,” snaps Kaidan. “We’re all going to the hangar together. I’m not leaving you behind.”

“There is… no other choice,” Liara says. “You have no idea where the Valiant is, or if they’re even still out there. A single fighter has limited resources; you will need to contact them before you leave this base.”

“The fighter will have a short range communicator,” says Kaidan. “Once we get out there, I’ll start broadcasting…”

“A flawed plan at best,” Liara replies, shaking her head. “If you venture out into open space and the Valiant isn’t there, you will be signing your own death warrant. The asteroids here are swarming with Cerberus patrol ships.”

She cradles her broken arm to her chest, pushing forward until she’s standing right in front of him. “Let me do this,” she says. “I will meet you at the hangar if...”

David lets out a pained grunt, and it’s all Kaidan can do to keep him upright. His mind races as he reviews the variables; someone needs to get David to the docking bay, but Liara can barely holds herself up, let alone another man. He knows that she’s right about the communique—they’re as good as dead if they can’t find a way to contact the Valiant.

He clenches his jaw. “If nothing,” he says. “You comm the Valiant and then you go to the hangar ASAP. We’re not taking off without you.”

Liara smiles faintly. “You always were an optimist, SPECTRE Alenko,” she says. She limps forward to embrace him lightly, hooking one arm awkwardly around his back. “Take care of him.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Kaidan returns the embrace as well as he can, and together they exit the holding room. The doors hiss shut behind them.

“I… I think we need to get a move on,” David says, brows furrowing as the red alert klaxon goes off in the distance.

Liara touches his cheek, moving away. “Good luck,” she says, and Kaidan nods.

“You, too.” He takes David’s arm and slings it around his neck, heading down the corridor in the opposite direction.

***

“Now?” Shepard asks, fingers clenched into a fist.

Kai Leng smiles slowly, standing. His blade weaves a single perfect arc as he sheathes it. The chamber is perfectly silent, each crewman riveted to the monitor where the SPECTRE and his companions are exiting the holding room.

“Now.”

_**  
**_


	8. Chapter 8

**XXXVI.**

**  
**

Liara holds her breath as troops march past her, trying not to make a sound as she crouches behind a bulkhead. The klaxon continues to drone on in the distance, and she grits her teeth. Her arm is still throbbing and her heart is beating like a mad thing, but her mind is clearer than it’s been in years. She has a mission, a _purpose_.

She mentally reviews the schematics from Kaidan’s omni-tool as she creeps forward, sighing in relief as the troops round the far corner. Alone once more, she continues onward to the medical wing. She ducks past the medbay, quiet enough that the voices inside don’t stutter as she passes, and makes her way into what appears to be a storage room. She’d seen the room marked on Kaidan’s schematics, as well as the larger grey area that appeared to be attached to it. To anyone else it would have appeared innocent, but she had guessed its purpose.

The crates are stacked high all around, and while at first glance it seems like little more than a dumping ground for old equipment, her eye catches some of the labels and it confirms her suspicions. The equipment here is state-of-the-art, with parts disassembled and packed up for future use. She heads to the far side of the room, studying the wall panels. The schematics had displayed the hidden recess right about here… _Ah._

There’s a quiet click as the wall slides open, revealing the hidden chamber. She steps inside, taking in the wealth of equipment—the tank, the consoles and, worst of all, the _tests_. There are half-grown clones still here, gestating in tubes with heads the size of a grown man’s fist.

Liara swallows hard. “Later,” she tells herself, making her way to the nearest console. It doesn’t take much for her to secure a channel, broadcasting on a frequency that rides beneath Cerberus’ own communiques. If the Valiant is still in the Athena nebula, they’ll get it.

Seconds trickle by as she leans back into the chair, staring at the screen. “Come on, EDI,” she whispers. “Where are you?”

***

The Valiant’s running low and cool, riding in the wake of one of the larger asteroids. They’d managed to lose the last of the fighters, but their shields are down to twenty percent and Greenberg has _just_ managed to patch up the coolant leak down in engineering. Everyone on the ship is holding their breath, trying not to breathe too loudly for fear of being noticed by the still-searching fighters.

All in all, EDI thinks, they’ve fared better than she’d thought they would. “Where is the second squad?” she asks Jeffrey, pacing behind him. She’s too agitated to sit.

“They’re still searching the asteroid we left earlier, Captain,” he says, keeping an eye on the moving blips. “I think they detected traces of our heat signature, but can’t tell what direction we moved on to.”

“Move to another asteroid as soon as there is an opening,” EDI says, tapping her comm panel. “Greenberg, please ensure that no further leaks spring in the coolant tanks while we do so.”

“They’re holding for now, Captain,” comes Greenberg’s strained reply. “But I’m not sure how much more I can give you. They’re really not meant for…”

“Captain,” Carrera interrupts, waving her hand up from her station.

“Do your best,” EDI says into the comm, then turns to Carrera. “What is it?”

“We’re receiving an incoming hail,” Carrera says. “But the frequency it’s on is Cerberus… or at least, I think it is. It’s not an exact match for anything we have on the database.”

“It might be SPECTRE Alenko,” EDI says, taking a seat at the nearest console. “Route it to this terminal.”

Carrera does so, and EDI reviews the frequency with practiced ease. It’s similar enough to what Cerberus uses that it may pass undetected, but EDI knows it won’t hold up under scrutiny. The layers of encryption running beneath it are sophisticated, and any Cerberus fighter who tried to access it would be denied entry.

She accepts the communique, opening the channel. She is not entirely surprised to see doctor T’Soni’s image. “Doctor,” she says. “Where is SPECTRE Alenko?”

“Heading to the main hangar,” Liara responds. “He’ll need an evac as soon as you can manage it. What is the Valiant’s status?”

“We have taken heavy damage, but we are still in the system,” EDI says. “Once we emerge from hiding, it will be impossible to make it to the base undetected. The distance is too great. If I send you our coordinates, will you be able to come to us?”

Liara shakes her head. “Doubtful,” she says. “Once they notice an unauthorized launch, Leng will very likely gun down the ship.”

EDI takes a moment to process this, running through the variable scenarios in her mind. “Understood,” she says. “We will come to you.”

“Captain, I don’t think—“ Carrera begins, but EDI silences her with a look.

“Standby for evacuation, doctor,” EDI says, and cuts off the communication. She rises from the terminal, clasping her hands behind her back. She faces Carrera, but makes her voice loud enough to reverberate throughout the bridge.

“SPECTRE Alenko has secured the hostages,” EDI says. “We will go on in and retrieve them. These are our orders, and I will see them carried them out. Is that clear?”

It’s not the most impossible mission that EDI has ever been on, but it’s dangerous enough to be intensely uncomfortable. For the rest of her crew, (with the exception of Jeffrey), it’s practically a direct order to step in front of a firing squad. To their credit, though, no one so much as raises a mutinous eyebrow.

Carrera clears her throat. “Aye, captain,” she says quietly, and EDI feels an unmistakable swell of pride.

“Jeffrey, try to maintain stealth for as long as possible,” EDI says. “But when they detect us, shift to the highest speed we can manage.”

It’s not the best plan, but it’s what they can manage with odds so stacked against them. _Still_ , EDI thinks, as she presses a hand against a nearby bulkhead, _we haven’t done so badly for a little science vessel_.

“Aye, captain,” replies Joker, and EDI nods.

_Here we go._

***

Liara breathes a sigh of relief as EDI cuts the channel.

Her primary goal now complete, she allows herself to study the room once more. Her lip curls in distaste as she stands, limping her way to the closest tube. The fetus here is half-formed, bobbing in viscous liquid, while the others down the line are a bit farther along. The oldest one is still unrecognizable as Shepard, with translucent skin the color of curdled milk and purple veins throbbing in the dim light.

“You were never meant to be,” she murmurs, pressing a hand to the glass.

She reaches behind her, pulling out the small pouch she’d lifted from the SPECTRE’s armor during their embrace. The explosives are small, each barely the size of a standard shell casing, but they pack enough of a wallop to ensure that Kai Leng will never be able to do this again.

“I am sorry,” she whispers.

Her hands shake only slightly as she lays down the explosives—one for each tank—and arms the detonator.

***

“Damn it!” Kaidan swears, stuttering to a stop.

“What is it?” David looks at him in confusion. They’re two corridors away from the main hangar and his head is pounding like a son of a bitch. “What’s wrong?”

“Liara,” Kaidan says, indicating the empty spot at his belt. “When she hugged me—she took my explosives. I was going to use them as backup in case the hangar got too hot.”

David shakes his head, trying to clear it. “Wh-why would she do that?” he asks.

Kaidan calls up the schematics on his omni-tool, swearing again as he sees what else is on the other side of the base. “Engineering or medical,” he says. “Take your pick. An explosion in either would buy us enough time to get away.”

“No,” David says, gripping his forearm. “If she does that, she’ll never make it to the hangar in time. We have to go back for her…”

Kaidan exhales harshly, caught between a rock and a hard place. There’s a small, selfish part of him that wants to go on; he’s got David and they’ve got a better chance at getting away if he lets Liara do this. But the other part of him, the part that still believes in integrity and second chances, knows that he’d never be able to live with himself if he did.

_Never leave a man behind._

“You’re right,” he says. He gently disengages from David, guiding him to lean against the corridor wall. “I’ll double back and get her, but you have to stay here. Wait inside one of the fighters, and if things get too hot…”

“Not going to happen,” David protests, grabbing for his wrist. “We’re supposed to get out of here together, remember?”

“It’s too dangerous for you,” Kaidan begins hotly, but the argument dies on his lips as he turns around, eyes widening as he hears the unmistakable tread of approaching troops. David opens his mouth to speak, but Kaidan covers his lips with the palm of his hand, shaking his head. They’ll have to worry about Liara later—right now, his priority is getting David to the hangar.

Quick as a whip, he grabs David by the waist and helps him forward, moving back towards the hangar. The only other way out is back from where they came, and judging by the sound of the approaching footfall, they’re not going to be able to take the coming troops alone.

“Damn it!” They round the bend just as shots begin to ring out, and all pretense at subtlety is forgotten as Kaidan half-carries, half-drags David the rest of the way. The klaxon is still blaring and he pulls out his pistol and pushes it into David’s hand, his biotics pulsing as he throws his barrier up.

“Get ready,” he grinds out, pulling out a grenade and tossing it behind him. It slows the approaching troops enough to allow them to reach the hangar doors in one piece, and Kaidan’s hoping against hope that he’s got enough juice left to overpower the guards inside.

This thought dies in his chest as soon as he palms the door controls.

“Going somewhere?” Shepard asks. His voice carries across the chamber easily, smooth as silk.

The admiral is standing partly in shadow beneath a fighter, alone and unarmed by the looks of it, but Kaidan knows that he is anything but helpless. His hand tightens briefly on David’s wrist before he stops, very carefully removing his arm from his waist.

“No matter what happens,” Kaidan tells him, his eyes not leaving Shepard’s for even a moment. “If you see an opening, you run like hell to that fighter, all right?”

David’s eyes are wide as he’s left gripping a nearby bulkhead to keep himself upright, and he shakes his head furiously at the command. “Kaidan, wait,” he protests, but the SPECTRE’s already straightening, bringing his gun up to bear.

“You want a fight?” Kaidan growls. “Then come and get it.”

Shepard smiles, and Kaidan finally gets a good look at him as he steps into the light. The red gleam of his cybernetics are glowing brightly under the cracks of his skin, and there’s a crazed look in his eyes.

“Come on, soldier.” Shepard’s voice is dangerously soft, and his biotics flicker to life with a violent glow. “Are you really going to bring a gun to a knife fight?”

\---

_**(A/N: Ending on an unforgivable cliffhanger because I didn't have time to finish the illustrations for the next chapters! D: It was either put up this little bit or nothing at all; terribly sorry for the inconvenience, guys. Update next Sunday!)** _


	9. Chapter 9

**XXXVII.**

 

The Valiant barely gets a thousand klicks away from the asteroid before they’re spotted.

The entire bridge crew watches as the red dots scattered across the sensor begin to make a beeline for them, and EDI clenches a fist. _Too soon._

“Full thrusters, Jeffrey,” she says, and the Valiant jerks, hurtling forward as they clear the asteroid’s wake.

“First wave coming in, captain,” Carrera shouts, gripping the console in front of her. “Four fighters, starboard side.”

“Greenberg, status on the Thanix!” EDI’s fingers leave dents on the wall comm beside her.

“I can only give you forty-five seconds between shots, captain!” The engineer’s voice is strained.

“Forty-five?!” Starsmore pipes up, incredulous. “There are four fighters incoming—we’re going to be dust before we get a second shot in!”

“Switch the cannon to my console,” EDI snaps, taking a seat. The fighters are coming in fast, but they’re coming from a right angle. The Valiant doesn’t have much in the way of weapons, true, but the one it does have has a respectable range.

“Captain…?” Starsmore hesitates, eyes riveted towards the screen. The Thanix cannon normally has a rate of fire of fifteen seconds per shot, but with the Valiant leaking coolant, they’re stuck at triple that. “We’re going to be in range of their weapons in less than a minute.”

“I’m aware of that, lieutenant,” EDI says, fingers dancing over her console. “Everything is just math.” It takes her a split-second to calculate for every minute variance in the space between Valiant and fighter, and half a second to actually trigger the canon.

The shot clips the nearest one’s wing, causing it to spiral and crash into the nearest asteroid, and the three other fighters scatter in an attempt to avoid the debris.

“They’re coming back in for another pass,” Joker says, sweat beading on his brow. “But the redirect is going to buy us a few more seconds!”

EDI nods. “Time left to recharge?”

“Twenty seconds, captain!” Starsmore says excitedly. The crew watches with baited breath as EDI pulls the same trick a second time, narrowly avoiding a chunk of asteroid. She succeeds in buying them enough time to recharge the cannon a third time.

“The last two fighters are coming back, captain,” Carrera calls out. “But they’ve split up and are approaching from port _and_ starboard!”

“Damn,” mutters Joker. He glances at EDI, raising a brow. “Want me to pull out the fancy moves?”

“Evasive maneuvers on my mark,” EDI says, nodding. She aims, pulling the trigger on the third fighter and hitting it dead-on. “Mark!”

The Valiant snaps left abruptly, barely dodging an asteroid as the fourth fighter finally gets into range, peppering the hull with fire. Joker manages to put an asteroid between them for a moment, but the fighter is infinitely more maneuverable. Its next pass takes their shields out completely, and smoke alarms begin to go off in the deck below.

EDI thumbs the trigger on the Thanix again, but nothing happens. “Greenberg--!”

“Captain, there’s coolant everywhere!” he shouts through the comm, his panicked voice filling the bridge. “The cannon’s down—there’s no way we can recharge it!”

EDI bares her teeth, pushing away from her console in frustration. “Jeffrey, how far away are we from the base?”

“On maximum thrusters… five minutes, captain,” Joker replies. His knuckles are white as he flies the ship behind another asteroid, the last fighter hot on their tail.

“Captain—even if we manage to evade this fighter,” Carrera says. “The second squad is going to be in range well before then.”

EDI’s eyes snap to the sensors and, sure enough, the second wave is fast approaching. Jeff manages to evade another volley of shots from the fighter behind them, but with their shields gone and their cannon down, they don’t have a lot of options.

“Jeffrey… stand down,” EDI says.

“Captain, what--?” Joker turns to her, shocked, but EDI stands her ground.

“Slow to a stop behind that asteroid,” EDI says. “And Carrera—open all hailing frequencies. Broadcast our surrender on all channels.”

***

Kaidan’s gun gets knocked out of his grasp when Shepard charges him, barely rolling away in time before the admiral’s fist crushes the floor next to his head. He can see David doubling over from the corner of his eye, and he frantically tries to draw Shepard away from him, moving further into the hangar.

The fight is purely biotics now, with Kaidan struggling to keep up as Shepard pulls out all of his deadliest tricks. He’s always been more powerful, and even Jack—biotic _wunderkind_ and all around badass-- couldn’t take him alone. Kaidan knows that the only chance he’s got is to play it smart, and he uses his _lifts_ to buy him time.

He snags a bulkhead and drops it on Shepard as he advances, getting to his feet as the admiral shakes it off. “Smart,” he says, baring his teeth. “But not nearly good enough.” He shrugs off the broken cargo, sparking a shockwave that slams into Kaidan and lifts him clear off his feet.

“Is that everything you’ve got?” Shepard asks.

Kaidan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and it comes away bloody. “I can get some more,” he grits, trying to pick himself up as the admiral advances. Shepard kicks out and catches him hard across his midsection, smirking as he curls in on himself.

 

“Pathetic.” Shepard releases his omni-tool’s blade with a flick of his wrist, calmly straddling his prey.

Kaidan bucks wildly beneath him, bringing his arms up just as Shepard stabs downward. He’s able to stop it bare inches from his chest, groaning as the admiral puts his weight behind the motion.

“I have to admit, I expected more from you the second time around, SPECTRE.” Shepard’s blade inches inexorably lower, and Kaidan hisses as the tip breaches his armor. Warmth floods across his chest as the blade breaks skin, his straining arms steadily giving way.

Suddenly, Shepard’s barrier flares as bullets pepper his back, and Kaidan doesn’t even think, just grabs the chance to throw a _lift_. Shepard drops several feet away, and the SPECTRE pushes himself up off the ground, breathing hard.

As one, their eyes snap to David.

David, who’s on his knees and shaking with the effort of keeping his gun hand steady. There’s blood streaming from his nose and his eyes are cloudy, but he’s holding Kaidan’s spare pistol and he’s just saved his life.

“David, _run_!” Kaidan shouts, and he throws everything he can into a _reave_ , attacking Shepard before he can go after him. He doesn’t even think as he rushes the man, delivering a vicious uppercut just as the admiral begins to shrug the effects off. His biotics are running on empty, but the only thought in his mind is to keep Shepard occupied long enough to buy David time to escape.

Shepard’s lips draw back in a snarl as he brings his arms up to block Kaidan’s next punch, slamming his head forward and catching Kaidan right between the eyes. He reels back, stunned, and Shepard hurls a lift in David’s direction without even looking. The gun flies from David’s hand as he slams into the ground, and Kaidan dives towards it, fingers closing on the grip.

“Bastard!” Kaidan snarls, bringing the pistol up to bear. Shepard’s face is twisted in a maniacal grin, his pupils so dilated they’re practically pure red.

The SPECTRE doesn’t hesitate, squeezing the trigger and snapping off three shots in quick succession. But Shepard’s biotic charge is second-to-none, and he’s untouchable in the split-second that he sparks it. Kaidan’s bullet hits nothing but air.

The biotic charge on the other hand, hits home with deadly accuracy. The force slams Kaidan back into the closest fighter, and the admiral grabs him by the neck and bashes his head back into the metal for good measure.

It’s not unlike Kaidan’s last encounter with the man, and he’s confronted by a disturbing sense of déjà vu as he claws at Shepard’s hands. Head spinning, he barely registers the doors to the hangar sliding open from the corner of his eye.

Kai Leng strides forward, followed closely by a dozen Cerberus commandos. It’s the first time Kaidan has seen him since his death, and he tries to scrape together what’s left of his biotics to hurl something— _anything_ —at the man.

Shepard’s mouth twists as he smashes Kaidan back into the fighter once more, watching the faint blue glow fade from his eyes. “Behave,” he growls, and Kai Leng smiles thinly.

“Welcome to my home, SPECTRE Alenko,” he says. “I’ve been anticipating this moment for quite some time, now.”

***

Sweat trickles down Joker’s forehead as EDI moves forward, clasping her hands behind her back. “How long before the second squad arrives?”

“Three minutes, twenty seconds, captain,” Carrera replies, face pale. “The last fighter is circling; he appears to have received our hail.”

EDI nods tersely. _Protocol dictates that he wait for his squad commander’s orders._ “Starsmore, prep the Mako,” she says. “Then wait for my signal to open the shuttle bay doors.”

Starsmore looks at her uncertainly, but gets to his feet. “A-aye, captain.”

“Go quickly,” EDI says, then moves back to the comm. “Greenberg, prepare to jettison the ion engine.”

“ _Captain--?_ ” Every eye on the bridge is now on her, but EDI doesn’t even flinch.

“Those are your orders, chief,” she replies. Precious seconds tick by as the fighters draw closer. “Starsmore—is the Mako ready?”

There’s a burst of static, then: “Yes, captain!”

“The chief will be jettisoning the engine as soon as the second squad is in range,” she says. “Once it has reached a sufficient distance, we will use the Mako’s canons to detonate the drive.”

“She’s running hot and good to go, captain,” Starsmore replies.

“ETA sixty seconds, captain,” Carrera says, and EDI nods. She moves towards the viewscreen, coming to a stop behind Joker. She reaches out, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“The Mako’s not made for space, EDI,” Joker says quietly. “Even if he manages to wrestle that monster into submission in zero G, Starsmore won’t make it out of the blast radius in time.”

“I know,” EDI replies, pulling away.

She’s across the deck and in the elevator before Joker even registers what she’s saying. She lifts a hand in farewell as the doors slide shut.

“Goodbye, Jeffrey.”

***

There’s a loud boom as Liara thumbs the detonator, the force of the explosion blowing the hidden chamber’s door clean off of its arch. She’s crouched behind the larger cargo boxes in the storage room, clutching her last explosive in a grubby fist.

“Goddess,” she whispers, closing her eyes briefly. _Be over._ Her bones ache and her body feels wrung out, stretched too thin, but even after everything, she needs to _make sure_. She pulls herself up with great effort, enough to peer over the cargo, and her eyes widen.

The fire has spread to the consoles now, the tanks reduced to broken glass and rubble. The stench of burning meat is overwhelming. The room itself is virtually unrecognizable, flames wreathing the station she’d sat in just minutes earlier.

“Nothing left.” Liara whispers. She watches long enough to make sure that everything is gone, straightening only when she hears the marching tread of coming soldiers.

Her left arm is useless, her body weak from blood loss. Her biotics have had time to recharge, but she’s hardly in any condition to take advantage.

She looks down, lip twisting at the explosive nestled in the palm of her hand.

Her last explosive.

Her last chance.

The doors slide open to a hail of gunfire, and Liara smiles.

 

**XXXVIII.**

EDI watches as the single fighter speeds up to join the incoming squad, entering their ranks in a perfect V formation. “ _Just a little more._ ”

They’re so near the point of no return now, and with her palms flat on the Mako’s controls, EDI thinks of Jeffrey, and of the Normandy, and of the Valiant— _her small, clever ship_ —and she smiles.

“ _Now_ , chief,” EDI says. “Jettison the engine!”

“Aye, captain!” Greenberg shouts, and EDI floors the Mako’s thrusters.

It hurtles forward, careening through her ship’s little runway, past the ruin of the Kodiak and hurtling towards the bay doors. “Starsmore!” EDI shouts and, right on cue, the lieutenant thumbs the switch.

The Mako clears the doors along with a flood of oxygen, its momentum carrying it forward through space. There’s dead silence as EDI watches the fighters continue to move forward in tight formation, narrowing her eyes as she locks onto the Valiant’s engine.

“EDI…” Her comm crackles to life as she fires, but there’s no time left for her.

The captain thumbs a switch, breathes a prayer, and closes her eyes as her viewscreen fills with fire.

***

There’s dead silence on the bridge as the Valiant’s engine core is jettisoned into space, and the entire crew holds their collective breath as they watch the Mako’s cannon fire streak towards it.

The engine explodes in a terrifying blast, catching the majority of the incoming fighters in its radius. They careen wildly out of control, spiraling in flames as they crash and burn into the surrounding asteroids.

A brief cheer goes up at that, but Joker can only watch as the Mako itself disappears behind the explosion. “EDI…” he chokes out, but he doesn’t get past that.

There are two fighters left, and they’re streaking towards the Valiant. The ship’s dead in the water—engine gone, power all but drained. Life support is the only thing still functional, and even that just barely.

Still, he has to ask. “Shields?” asks Joker.

“Gone, sir,” Carrera says. Her voice only breaks at the last.

“Well, shit,” says Joker.

***

“Go to hell,” Kaidan growls.

Leng shrugs, unsheathing his blade. “You first,” he replies easily. He comes to a halt in front of David, prodding his twitching form with the flat of his sword. The man moans softly, eyes fluttering.

“Bring him,” Leng says, nodding, and two commandos hurry to comply. They lift David by the arms, one on each side, and drag him before Kaidan and the admiral.

“I applaud your efforts, SPECTRE,” Leng says, his voice just this side of pleasant. He steps closer to Kaidan, patting him on the cheek. “I would almost be impressed, if you hadn’t failed so miserably.”

He glances behind him. “Hold him up, Lieutenant,” he says. “I wouldn’t want our dear mister Anderson to miss anything.”

David struggles furiously as a third trooper grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks his head back, forcing him to look up.

“N-no!” Kaidan’s fingers dig into the admiral’s forearm.

“It’s a pity, really. I’d hoped that Shepard would be conscious again by the time I did this,” Kai Leng murmurs, almost to himself. He draws his blade back, bare inches away from Kaidan’s heart. “But I’ll have to settle for this pathetic shit watching, instead.”

Shepard’s fist tightens on Alenko’s throat and he chokes on it, face purpling as he begins to see stars.

“ST-STOP,” David shouts. Kaidan tries to speak, to apologize, to say _goodbye_ , but all that comes from his lips is a wet gasp. His heart beat is drumming in his veins, and he sees the glint of Leng’s sword, the metal flashing as he plunges it forward. There’s a sound of thunder as blue light floods his vision, and for a split-second Kaidan wonders if this is what death feels like. Then he opens his eyes (he hadn’t realized he’d even closed them, really), and he sees it. _Shockwave._

“ _Get your hands off of him!_ ”

The biotic charge comes next, and it tosses Kai Leng back half a dozen paces and nearly knocks Kaidan’s teeth out, but David’s suddenly standing between him and Shepard’s clone. His legs are planted and he’s got a gun in his hand, and half a dozen men are on the ground behind him. And just like that, Kaidan _knows_.

Everything Liara had said was true. David’s the real Shepard, he’d been him all along, and Kaidan wants to laugh and cry and shout, all at the same time. He settles for gasping for breath at David’s feet, inanely caught by the urge to wave hello.

“I got this, Kaidan,” David—no, *Shepard* says, and he draws a breath and sparks a nova. It’s the biggest Kaidan has ever seen, and the shockwave rips through the clone’s chest and throws him clear across the room.

“And as for you…” Shepard strides over to Kai Leng and kicks out, catching the struggling man hard across the jaw. He’s got his sword in his hand but John is absolutely relentless, hauling him to his feet as if he weighs nothing.

“Never again,” he snarls. His eyes are a glowing, brilliant blue, and he slams Leng into a bulkhead, the metal crumbling with the force of it. “Thane… Bailey… _Liara_ … you’ll never touch anyone I care about ever _again_.”

“You…” There’s an almost-smile hovering on Leng’s lips, blood dripping from the side of his face. “Welcome back, Shepard.”

He drives an elbow into Shepard’s jaw and manages to break free of his hold, reversing his grip on his sword as John brings his arms up to block it. Quick as a whip, he twists to the side and slams the hilt of the sword into Shepard’s collarbone. There’s a crumpling sound as he drops to one knee, eyes blazing as his right arm hangs useless.

“John--!” Kaidan doesn’t even bother to get up—just scrapes together whatever biotics he still has and then some—and hurls a _reave_ at Leng. It’s a weak one by his standards, but it buys Shepard enough time to take a breath, to push back the pain.

When Leng draws his blade back, Shepard moves as well. He gets his feet under him as stands, slamming his forehead into the man’s face as he does so. There’s a sickening crunch of a nose breaking, and Leng steps back, momentarily stunned. Kaidan watches in horrified fascination as Shepard rips Leng’s sword away and shoves it back into his chest, twisting it as he reaches the hilt.

Blood erupts from Leng’s mouth as Shepard releases him, and he manages a step back before dropping like a ton of bricks. As soon as he does, John staggers himself, and Kaidan barely manages to catch him before he falls to the floor.

“Hey,” Kaidan says, arms going around him. Thoughts are racing through his mind—there’s so much he wants to say, but his lips can’t quite form the words. He looks at John, almost surprised to find that his face is wet.

 _I love you_ , he wants to say, but what comes out instead is: “You… you outta juice?”

Shepard chuckles, scrubbing at his eyes. “Oh yeah,” he says. “For the next decade or so, I think.”

Kaidan laughs a little at that himself, wincing as the movement makes his the area around his amp ache. He’s almost certainly overloaded it. And Shepard…

He smiles a stupid, crooked little smile.

***

EDI snaps back to consciousness approximately three hundred and sixty seconds after her body is destroyed. Having not been a part of the Normandy in quite some time, the feeling of once again being shackled within a ship takes some getting used to.

She becomes aware of the status of the Valiant as she spreads her awareness across the decks, noting every leak and blown console and filing it away for later repairs. She finds her way to the bridge, extending her reach until every bulkhead, every console, every part of the ship is hers.

She sees Joker, his pale, stricken face, and notes the last two fighters streaking towards her ship. Even after everything, she is unable to do anything but watch.

“Jeffrey…” She whispers, her voice filtering through to his console. Only for his ears.

He nearly falls out of his chair when he hears her, his eyes widening as he stares at the console. “EDI…? You—you made it out?”

“My consciousness is part of the Valiant now,” EDI replies. Her sensors tell her that the fighters are almost in range. “Though it appears it will not be for long. Jeffrey, I wanted to tell you…”

The rest of her sentence cuts off as a hail of cannon fire, far more powerful than the Valiant’s Thanix, fills the screen. They watch as the fighters are cut down within seconds and reduced to floating wreckage.

“Where the hell did that come from?” Joker asks into the stunned silence, already calling up their long range sensors. It turns out that he needn’t have bothered, however, as a shadow falls over the Valiant’s main viewscreen.

“Is that _Quarian_?” Carrera asks in awe.

Ten heavy cruisers glide smoothly to a stop in front of the Valiant, starlight shining across their sleek hulls. There’s a burst of static as Carrera picks up their hail.

“Captain of the Valiant, this is Admiral Tali’Zorah. We are here to assist you in your mission.”

“You have excellent timing, admiral,” EDI’s voice returns, and Carrera lets out a frightened shout as she spins around.

There’s no one there, of course, and every eye on the bridge turns to Joker, who mimes ‘sit down’ at them. “I’ll explain later,” he whispers.

“As I am currently non-corporeal, the Valiant will need assistance in securing the Cerberus base,” EDI continues. “SPECTRE Alenko and his companions are currently in need of extraction. An ensuing firefight will be likely.”

“Well, if that’s the case,” a wry voice puts in. “Maybe I should come along as well.”

Joker hasn’t heard it in years, but the voice is unmistakable. Tali’s grand entrance notwithstanding, his eyes practically bug out when he recognizes it.

“ _Garrus_?”

***

“Attention all hands: This is Captain EDI of the Alliance ship Valiant. There are ten heavily armed Quarian ships who have the base surrounded and are currently boarding. All Cerberus personnel who lay down their arms will be tried fairly in the Alliance courts of law.”

There’s a burst of static, followed by: “However, if any harm comes to SPECTRE Kaidan Alenko and his companions… be aware that I will have no qualms about reporting this base as destroyed, with all hands perishing on board.”

A momentary pause. “EDI out.”

Liara’s singularities are almost gone, but they’ve managed to buy her time enough for this. She steps out from behind a bulkhead, one of the few remaining in the smoking room, and glances at the shock troops before her. They’re in varying states of disarray, several still floating in the ceiling above, others crouched behind wrecked equipment.

“What is it going to be, gentlemen?”

***

By the time Tali and the Quarian troops storm in, Shepard and Kaidan have managed to pull themselves together. After comm’ing Liara in the engine room (she reports no resistance from the troops who surrendered to her), the pair settles down in the middle of the hangar, waiting for pickup.

Garrus has likewise joined the landing party, and Shepard’s former squadmates survey the docking bay with some small measure of surprise.

Tali, to her credit, finds her voice first. “Jack says hello,” she says to Kaidan, by far an easier conversation starter than ‘ _ohmygodohmygodisthatshepardisshepardalive_ ’.

“Did she really?” he asks, managing a grin as she helps him to his feet.

“I am… paraphrasing,” Tali says, wincing behind her mask. She tries not to stare at Shepard, who is accepting a blanket from one of the Quarian troops. “Her message was quite colorful. She was not pleased that you left her behind.”

“Well, she can yell at me when we get back,” Kaidan says diplomatically. “You saved our butts, Tali. And you too, Garrus.”

Garrus is still staring at Shepard, and doesn’t reply. He keeps looking from him (floppy hair, bare-chested, and bleeding) to the clone (a spitting image of the original, but lying across the room with a hole in his chest), and back again.

“Do I even want to know?” he asks after a brief eternity, and Kaidan shakes his head tiredly.

“You really don’t,” he says.

 

**EPILOGUE**

In the end, life goes on.

Tali returns to Rannoch, this time taking Garrus with her. Apparently whatever demons he’d been harboring are exorcised with Shepard’s return, and he now finds himself free to pursue all that he truly wants. Tali is beside herself at this development, and when she steps onto her beloved home planet with him for the first time, she feels truly at peace.

Kox gets out of the hospital eventually, making a full recovery. He leaves the Shadow Broker’s employ and opts to leave the pet store as well, stating that he’d never really liked animals in the first place. Kaidan spots him boarding a shuttle to Thessia, muttering about peace and quiet. The SPECTRE calls in a few favors and makes sure that he finds some… company… when he arrives. Aria promises to send her nicest girl after him.

Joker takes a well-deserved leave from the Valiant, and he spends this time working with the best Quarian engineers to construct a new vessel for EDI. They manages to come up with something that, while not as impressive as Cerberus’ original Doctor Eva, is entirely customized to EDI’s wishes. When Joker returns to the Valiant, EDI is able to (once again) greet him with a firm embrace.

Liara heals, slowly but surely, and takes residence in the Citadel. Kaidan ensures that she is taken care of, and is pleased to see a smile hovering across her lips. It has yet to turn into a laugh, a full-blown grin, but he knows that it will come in time.

With her help, he manages to unearth Sha’ira’s hidden files. They are the files that had gotten her killed, and they disclose every hidden member of Cerberus within the Citadel walls. They are within C-Sec and the Alliance and the SPECTRE ranks, and Kaidan has to suppress a chill at how close Kai Leng had gotten to succeeding.

He makes all the necessary arrests and then some, ensuring that every aspect of Cerberus is weeded out. _They will never hurt anyone ever again._

And as for John Shepard—once hailed as the savior of the galaxy, and after that known merely as David Anderson—he is still very much in love with Kaidan Alenko.

***

“Hey, you coming up any time soon?” John asks. He comes up behind Kaidan, putting his hands on the other man’s shoulders. Kaidan leans into the touch, closes his eyes.

“Why? Do you have something in mind?” He asks, smiling cheekily.

John snorts. “Get your mind out of the gutter, SPECTRE. Jake’s asking for a bedtime story.”

“Ah,” Kaidan says, getting up. “I thought he was asleep.”

“He was waiting for you to come in,” John replies, following him up the stairs. “He hung out at the store with Ashes and me all day. Wouldn’t stop begging for some jellyfish.”

Kaidan groans. “You told him that Ashes’ll eat them, right?”

“Of course I did,” Shepard says. “He says that’s _why_ he wants them.”

They enter Jake Petrovsky’s bedroom together, each perching on opposite sides of his bed. Jake grins, gap-toothed and cocky in all of his nine-year-old glory. “ _Please_ , Kaidan?” he says. “My birthday’s coming up, and John said I could have whatever I wanted!”

“Within reason,” Shepard says hastily, holding up his hands. “I said you could have anything you wanted _within reason_!”

“But He’dan from school says his mom got him a python from Earth, and he gets to feed it baby mice once a week,” Jake says. “I just want to see Ashes eat stuff!”

Ashes mewls conspiratorially from somewhere under his bed, and Kaidan rolls his eyes. “Listen, your birthday’s still a couple of weeks away,” he says. “If you still want jellyfish by then, I’ll get you a couple. But you’re _not_ allowed to feed them to Ashes.”

“Aw,” Jake groans, flopping back in bed. “But it’d be _so_ cool!”

“Actually, it _was_ pretty cool,” Shepard admits, and winces when Kaidan glares at him. “Sorry, I meant it’s really _cruel_. For the jellyfish, I mean. Ashes likes her prepacked protein feed just fine, Jake.”

There’s a disgusted yowl from under the bed, and this time both Shepard and Jake look at Kaidan with pleading eyes. “On Thessia, Asari felines used to hunt their prey and eat them live,” John offers. “It would be a treat for her, to be honest.”

Kaidan sighs. “Maybe… just one,” he says, relenting, and Jake lets out a whoop. Ashes comes out from under the bed, rubbing against his calves.

“…you were all in this together, weren’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Shepard laughs, and his whole face lights up. He’s got David’s crooked smile and John’s fire, and both of them love Kaidan with everything they have.

Jake shoves a pad in his hands and Kaidan flips it open to reveal, ( _surprise, surprise_ ) the latest Blasto adaptation. There’s a bit too much blood and guts in the Blasto series for Kaidan to really condone reading it to a kid, but considering everything Jake has been through, he’s probably mature enough to handle it.

He’s a good kid, and Kaidan believes their decision to adopt him a year ago was one of the best they’d made. He hopes that wherever she is, Rebekah is okay with it.

“Don’t forget to do the voices,” Shepard says, and Kaidan smiles wryly.

“How could I forget?”

He finds the place where they’d left off last night, and as he reads about Blasto gunning down a squad of rogue Drell assassins, he glances at the rapt faces looking up at him.

 _Maybe_ , Kaidan thinks, _happy endings do happen after all_.

“’This one doesn’t have time for your solid waste excretions’ said Blasto, as he stepped over their oozing corpses…”

 

FIN


End file.
